Beauty hears Beau calling.
She promptly leaves the nest.
Well, we still think there are 6 chicks. Certainly there are at least two eggs un-hatched, and it is unlikely that they will hatch now.
Beau is proving a most diligent Dad. He brings all the food, when Beauty leaves the nest she does not bring anything back for her chicks. She must have all her work cut out in obtaining enough food for her own needs, bearing in mind the short amount of time she is away from the nest. She no longer eats any of the food collected by Beau, she feeds it all to her sometimes reluctant brood.
Most of the time Beau comes into the nest with food, he passes it to Beauty who feeds it to the chicks. Although to start with Beau sometimes used to stay to watch, he rarely does so now, leaving immediately he has passed the food to Beauty.
Sometimes, however, we see a different sequence of events. First Beau signals that he is coming by chirping outside the nest. On hearing this, Beauty gets out of the nest cup and promptly leaves the nest. Beau enters, usually with a large green caterpillar (LGC), and attempts to find a willing throat to thrust it down. This is often somewhat difficult and can take from 30secs to well over a minute to achieve. He then waits a bit more to see if the chick has anything to give him in return (ie a faecal sac!) and then leaves. Sometimes he will have time to come back once or twice more before Beauty returns, but generally not.
The images below show a typical sequence.
You can see that Beau does not find his brood fighting for the food. Apparently, he has stuffed them so full that they would prefer to sleep on it.
You can also still see the two un-hatched eggs.
Beau enters with a LGC.
Over three minutes later, Dad departs.
Mum returns directly after and settles down to brood again.
Beauty does not bring any food with her. Presumably she has been foraging for food for herself.
Battler is still incubating. Our estimate of the date of her eggs hatching is in four days time on 20th May.