How's this for a chick developmental strategy...

Today Berthyn, Peris and Hesgyn are 41, 40 and 38 days old respectively.

The fledging window opens in another 10 days or so, but I wouldn't bet any money on the oldest, Berthyn, taking to the skies first. Larger females tend to wait around a bit, it takes a lot of time to get sufficient feather development to take all that bulk into the air.

Age at fledging for all our Dyfi chicks to date, 2011 onwards

Flounder Strategy

We noticed this week a classic bird of prey strategy to try and hurry-up chick development, pre-fledging age.

Rather than process the food for them, both Monty and Telyn just dropped a fish into the nest and looked on from close-by perches. What would happen? Would their three offspring immediately 'know' how to handle a live fish, would they ignore it or would they show an interest?

Here's the flounder test - probably the the hardest prey species to deal with on the Dyfi nest.