One of Claire's chicks had hatched before we switched off last night. How many will have hatched by morning?
Sam is doing the dutiful partner bit and bringing food for Claire and the chicks.
I had meant to alter the timer to arrange that the power came on at 6 o'clock to catch any chicks hatching after that time. All I did was to alter the turn off time from 7.30pm to 6.00pm! These switches are obviously too complicated for me!
Clearly, there are some eggs unhatched! One of those shown here looks a bit odd though - I hope it's OK.
There are at least 2 chicks here.
That's better Claire - we can see now! It looks like 3 chicks and 2 eggs so two chicks hatched overnight - though it was probably early this morning actually.
Both of these eggs look whole, so I wonder what caused the first picture of the eggs to look so odd.
That settles it - three chicks and two eggs!
Sam seems to be playing his part pretty well. Here he is again with some food.
And again 5 minutes later.
It's surprising that the chicks don't get smothered when sat on as thoroughly as this.
You'd think the Sam would learn to be more flexible in where he stands to pass food to Claire. This looks most awkward for the poor girl!
We've noticed this before. Each bird has its favourite side for passing food to the chicks. Clearly Sam's favourite side is to the right.
You can see the three chicks here clearly enough. You can also see the odd looking egg though. It's almost as though the chick so exhausted itself breaking open the egg that it had no strength left for getting out of it!
A few minutes later Claire comes back and it looks as though she has decided to remove the egg. This must mean that the chick has died inside it.
Here you can see her removing the egg with the dead chick still inside it.
So now we have three chicks and only one unhatched egg!