Richmond: a tragedy!

Last night around 6 o'clock in Richmond the first egg of Harriet and Ozzie hatched. We saw great pics on the cams which zoomed in so close we could see the little thing crawl out of the egg and being pushed onder the feathers by Harriet. So sweet. But the eyas did not look good. It was blue-black around the belly region.
Harriet took the shell and put her beak in it, got something of the allantois and seemed not satisfied with what she tasted.



When morning brooke we saw the eyas dead in the nestbox covered with flies. What had happened? The second egg had a pip and Harriet appeared to be all stressed out. She was watching the pipped egg, and then we saw how she started to pick in to the hole, and broke off pieces of shell, picked once more. Then she grabbed the eyas in the egg, got up and flew away with the eyas in the egg. When she came back she got the corps of the other dead eyas and brought that one away as well.



Ozzie took over and he started brooding the leftover eggs, and there was a pip in one of them. Or did she pick the shell open herself. It did not look like a pip of an eyas. What was in it did not look healthy at all. Blackish, not pink. And the pip was not in the right place. Harriet was stressed out, and was panting. Poor thing

Nothing is so upsetting for peregrines as the death of an eyas or a broken egg, let alone 3 in less than 24 hours.



First of all this is in no way confused behaviour of the female. She is not killing her eyases just like that. She is doing a very great job. The eyases in the egg are very ill. She has to kill them because they are to ill to survive. That is extremely stressfull for this female.

What can be wrong? It is dangerous to engage in all kinds of speculation. But it is obvious something is very wrong. What can it be. The first thing that comes to mind is an infection that has made the whole clutch ill. There are a lot of micro organisms that can be transferred to the egg by the mother and become deadly for the embryo or make it very ill. The embryo however will develop or even hatch but will die very soon after. Or die while hatching.



A micro organism can be directly transferred from the mother to the egg in the ovary,this is called transovarian infection. The micro organisms are added to the egg just before the shell is formed in the shellgland.

Another possibility is an infection by micro organisms and fungi after the eggs are laid and not being brooded yet. These micro organanism grow explosively under normal room temperature.
These are known for their deadly effect: Salmonella, Chlamidya, Coli, and Herpes are possibilities.

I do hope it will be possible for the biologists to do a necropsy to figure out what has happenend.

For Harriet and Ozzie this is a tragedy. It is however still early in the season, they may start a second clutch.