Something keeps happening in Jess's nest that we haven't seen before - at least not to this extent. The chicks keep trying to get out from under her when she is brooding them. As you will see, that can have disastrous consequences for the chick concerned.
An adventurous chick has escaped again.
This is getting ridiculous!
Of course, none of those concerned realise how dangerous this situation is.
This is the last picture the system took before the accident.
After sitting on the nest in the same position for some time, Jess takes it into her head to turn round. As a result the chick on her back is flung out of the nest cup.
For some time, the chick struggled blindly and at random to get back home. At this age chicks cannot see and neither can they make any sound. The interesting thing to me is that the adult birds do not appear to recognise it as a chick when it is out of the nest cup - or is it just that they are programmed to respond to yellow gapes and white faecal sacs, but to little else.
For some time we could see the struggles of the displaced chick, but neither Jess nor James appeared to even notice its existence.
This is Jess coming to the nest as usual with more food.
And this is James bringing food.
James more or less walked on top of the displaced chick while he passed some food to Jess.
When the chick finally died is not entirely clear as it seemed to make the odd twitch long after it had stopped any vigorous movement.
This is the last picture of the day. Neither Jess nor James appear to have noticed anything amiss. We thought that they may notice the dead chick in the morning and remove it from the nest box, but so far this has not happened.
There has been no sign of any movement from the chick for nearly an hour now.