Beauty's chicks are starting to look like birds rather than pink blobs. The more advanced of them are actually starting to exercise embryonic wings with feathers. More of this later.
Our first images show the efforts that the parent birds sometimes have to go to in order to obtain a buyer of their LGCs (Large Green Caterpillars)
Here Beau is passing a LGC to Beauty.
She passes it to the nearest, most eager chick.
The chick can be seen in the right hand image struggling valiantly to swallow the beast.
All to no avail! After watching the unequal battle for what seems an age, but is probably no more than 10 seconds, she removes the caterpillar and tries again with another gaping mouth.
This shows the wing feather starting to develop on Beauty's chicks.
At the moment, the exercise is mainly stretching which reveals the pink skin underneath the wings as can be seen on the right hand image.
The chamber in which the chicks are growing is like a sphere with the top cut off. As a result, this chick looks as though it is filling the nest all by itself!
Finally, we never saw another image of eight chicks. It must have been an optical illusion. However, pictures of 7 gapes, as seen in this image, are few and far between. Most images show only 5 or 6 chicks, so we haven't totally ruled out an eighth chick.
Beauty and Beau continue to look after their chicks with no apparent problems. The picture shows Beau with a mealworm and four chick gapes. The depth of the nest cup is such that it is difficult to see the chicks, but the odd glimpse we get shows that their feather development is coming along well. It won't be long before Beauty feels that they are big enough to leave alone at night - she might get a more comfortable rest that way - but not yet. She is brooding them again tonight.
It is difficult to imagine but in 8 more days these chicks will fledge!
We have been looking carefully for Scrap in Battler's nest, but to no avail. We have no pictures taken during the day that show more than 5 chicks and the likelihood must be that it is Scrap that has died. If that has indeed happened, Battler will have removed Scrap's body as part of her normal housekeeping routine.
Here is an image of five enthusiastic gapes pleading for food.