28th April - one more egg and the hen bird gets a feed

There are three eggs now in the nest

I am beginning to get used to her ways. She's there by 10.30, and again I am already hard at work; in fact I'm concentrating on what I'm doing so hard that although I pretty much know that she is only in the nest for one reason and that is to lay another egg, I completely miss seeing her egg labour. In my defence, it has to be said that she seems to be getting as laid back about the whole process as I am, and perhaps it just wasn't as dramatic this time around. While she is still on the nest, the male bird comes to give her some food. He doesn't like me much; never did. He tuts in dissaproval when he spots me, but VERY quietly, almost under his breath. I couldn't quite make out what he had brought for lunch - it looked like a big lump of bread, and I can only hope it was something more nutritious. Mabe one of the neighbours has a fat bar out for the birds, but it looked a bit dry to be fat. At any rate there was a lot of inexpert fumbling as he tried to give the offering to his mate, and at one point he simply dropped it on her head. Something I noticed with the first brood was that the parents actually had to learn how to feed their young. I guess they were first timers, because when the chicks hatched they simply waved the food above the frantic babies beaks, occasionally dropping food onto them in a completely random way. Once the stronger of the chicks had grabbed it's first meal they seemed to get the hang of what they were supposed to do and food was rammed firmly into whichever open beak seemed hungriest. How odd that the male seems to have forgotten what to do! she stayed quite a bit longer this time, and even returned mid afternoon for another hour, which made me suspicious but when I looked there were three eggs rather than four.

Eggy closeup