What has happened today is such an amazing coincidence that I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it!
Yesterday, when the cameras switched off, we appeared to have three healthy chicks.
Here is Fay giving the chicks a last feed before leaving them for the night. All three chicks seemed fine then.
Next morning when we came to look at Fay's nest, we could only see two chicks.
Then we noticed something pink and grey, just to the left of the eggs that can still be seen in the nest cup. This was the third chick and it was pretty clear that it was dead.
Fay seemed to ignore it until suddenly at 9.40, she decided to try to remove the body. Here you can see that she has lifted it off the bottom of the nest cup.
She tries to take it to the hole ...
... in order to take it out ...
... of the box.
She clearly has great difficulty, presumably because it is too big for her.
By the time she emerges from the box, you can see that she must have dropped the body inside the box. Her beak is empty.
Because it is difficult to see, I have ringed the body of the chick. It has fallen directly beneath the hole and an inch or two away from the front wall of the nest box.
And now comes the amazing coincidence.
To our relief, we haven't seen the woodpecker since his fight with Bertie at the other box (is that when Bertie disappeared?) That was over two weeks ago. Then within four minutes of Fay dropping the dead chick's body in a place that is accessible to a woodpecker, one arrives at the nest box!
He sticks his head into the nest box ...
... and presumably sees the body ...
... picks it up ...
... and removes it!
Here you can see he has the dead chick in his beak.
He turns, and flies off with it.
Three minutes later Fay is back with her remaining chicks and life goes on as normal!
Here is Fay feeding her two chicks an hour later.
At the end of the day, all seems to be OK.
And we haven't seen the GSW again - yet!