Our first egg arrived at last night at 23:18pm therefore a hastily agreed watch commenced ahead of a formal blog commencing tomorrow.
0730hrs – 0800hrs: Poppy sitting in the scrape brooding
0800hrs: Poppy stands and commences preening and careful turning the egg with her beak, she then stands over it for a while
0808hrs: Poppy settles down on the egg
0810hrs – 0817hrs: Poppy is restless, fidgeting, adjusting the egg position with her beak standing over the egg, occasionally sitting down briefly.
0817hrs: She continues to stand over the egg closing her eyes
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0827hrs: Poppy is still standing over her egg
0829hrs: She continues to stand while pecking and chewing gravel
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0846hrs: Poppy walked off the scrape to the edge of the box
0851hrs: Poppy leaves the box
0856hrs: The egg had been unattended for a few minutes but Henry arrives and quickly settles down on the egg, this continued until 0956hrs he seemed settled and calm, dozing, occasionally quite alert pecking at the gravel and shuffling a little
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1019hrs: I return to find Henry standing on the edge of the box, the egg is uncovered, this remains the same until approx. 1038hrs
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1106hr: Henry is back brooding the egg.
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1145hrs: Henry remains in the scrape, brooding and awake
1156hrs: He’s looking around, shuffling about, trying to resettle
1159hrs: Henry dear chap you’re not quite over the egg but he soon settles covering it again.
1220hrs: He’s still sitting there alert but calm
1311hrs: He’s dozing occasionally looking around
1320hrs: Another egg turn and shuffle about
1400hrs: Another brief glimpse of the egg as Henry repositions
1412hrs: Henry is very alert but calm
1414hrs Henry is up, stretches his wings, walks to the edge of the box and flies away, leaving the egg alone.
1417hrs: Poppy returns to brood the egg, for a while she sits with her wings outstretched in a beautiful pose calmly looking around in the afternoon sun. From now until 1530hrs she stays but can’t seem to completely settle, sometimes she sits, sometimes she stands but always over the egg careful not to stand on it, occasionally repositioning it gentle with her beak. Sometimes she’s preening or reorganising the gravel.
1529hrs: She’s standing up now and appears to chirp
1530hrs: She leaves the egg making her way to the edge of the box
1532hrs: she flies away, neither bird in sight
1556hrs: Henry arrives (the egg having been alone and uncovered for 24mins, he settles almost immediately
1600hrs end of watch Henry is settled brooding the egg with his eyes closed.
Contributions by Rachel, Peter, Michael & Brendan