Nearly there now - the first of the remaining chicks are due to fledge on Wednesday!
We have never had a brood of chicks whose development is so varied. The early hatchers are now starting to get out of the nest cup and walk about the nest. They look little different from, and only slightly smaller than their parents. Here is one such chick having a morning walkabout. Next to this chick, the two youngest chicks, Scrawny and Scrap, appear juvenile indeed.
A chick goes walkabout.
On the right Scrawny and Scrap shout for their breakfast - well mid-morning snack anyway.
Fantail often finds her older chicks difficult to control.
Here one decides to do some wing stretching when she is trying to tidy up the nest.
Fantail is under the chicks left wing! Scrap is finding it difficult to swallow a large mealworm.
The parents seem to tease the chicks when offering them food. If the item is not grabbed positively and swallowed quickly it is removed by the parent and offered to another chick. Sometimes the parent will not even offer it elsewhere, but remove it and fly out of the nest with it. It may come back shortly after and have another go, or it may not. Presumably it eats these itself.
On the left below you can see Scrap's pink body. Under its wings, the feathers have not yet started to grow at all. It is a feisty chick though, usually at the front of the nest and demanding food continually - sometimes with the result that food already half swallowed is removed again.
Scrap still looks very pink. On the right, he has managed to grab a mealworm - can he get it down quickly enough to keep it?
Fred goes for Scrap's tonsils. (Do birds have tonsils?) You can see why Scrap gets his share of the food!