My thoughts on this cracked egg and I am certainly no expert.  I believe it was empty, without a yolk.  I do not see any evidence of leakage from this egg, on or near the cracked section egg.  A&B don't seem to be in any hurry to dispose of this egg.  Normally they would.  They did last year.

Mark Nash told me that if there is any leakage from a broken/cracked egg, it must be removed as soon as possible.  This is due to the damage that it may cause to their feathers.  


I'm still not giving up hope for the last two eggs, which seem to be intact.  There may be no hatches in Rochester this year, but I won't give up until A&B give up.

It's funny that you post this, Carol, I think I remember that from last year -- that a leaking egg could be "toxic"  or at least "not good"  for the birds.   
I don't know about the egg being empty.  I enlarged it earlier and it certainly looked like somthing was in

there to me..IMHO. 
Did anyone else enlarge and zoom in on the image that I think Donna or Ei posted?   It was this afternoon.

I did and also thought there was something in there but I guess, with it gone, we'll never know for sure.

This banding article has video...

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/05/24/peregrine-falcon-chicks-banded

Could have sworn I saw this photo article posted, but I can't find it...

http://thestar.blogs.com/photoblog/2011/05/up-close-and-personnel-with-the-chicks.html

Donna posted this at the end of reply #620.

Another update on Nora in Iowa

Nora had her surgery on Friday, now has metal screws, plates, pins holding her ankle together and is in a non-weightbearing cast for 6-8 weeks, so, of course, is still on crutches.  Yikes!  When Nora does something, she always does it well!!  But she is more comfortable now that everything is stable.  And is glad to be home!!  Now she will have to join us favoured few, who have to go through the wand/manual search at airport security! 

Anne in Toronto

Ah, yes, I know it well with my double knee replacements!! Good to hear that she's home and everything's been stabilized (with all that hardware!) and hope all goes well for her in the weeks to come.

Via Twitter-5 eyases for Hera and Zeus!

I looked it up and Seneca's baby hatched at 42 days but they said on the CMNH Forum that " Hilliard hatched at 44 days".  When hatches are close, don't the females usually spend most of the time on the eggs?  Another question- if the eggs become abandoned by A & B, will the DEC remove them to determine what is wrong?

I knew you'd have the answer.  Thanks.  So, this first egg was laid on April 1 or 2?  Second egg arrived on the 8th of April, and the third egg came pretty quickly after if I recall.    She has expended a lot of energy keeping these eggs warm and dry for these past....almost two months!   Perhaps our miserble weather is part of it too?  
I think someone posted that just prior to hatch that Kaver would do more incubating duty at night.  Archer has certainly be spending a great deal of time on the eggs lately.  Why?  We don't know.  So many
questions.
And I think we are all wondering if and when the DEC or another expert should perhaps be consulted.
Of course, out in the wild, unmonitored, these things happen as well.  It's just that we are so up close and personal in these falcons' lives.  

Actually, hard incubation didn't start until April 12th or 13th and those are the days that we start counting to hatch day.  As a rule, from what I've read, Peregrine eggs usually hatch between 29- 33 days from the start of hard incubation and hard incubation usually starts after the laying of the next to last or last egg so they all start developing at the same time. Today would be day 39 or 40 for hard incubation here.

I looked it up and Seneca's baby hatched at 42 days but they said on the CMNH Forum that " Hilliard hatched at 44 days".  When hatches are close, don't the females usually spend most of the time on the eggs?  Another question- if the eggs become abandoned by A & B, will the DEC remove them to determine what is wrong?

Personally, I think Beauty's instinct knows something is amiss. Now she relinquishes more to Archer.

Does anyone know what is the longest time for hatch?

I have thought for several days now that Beauty is starting to abandon the eggs.  She knows.  I think that Seneca's baby hatched at around 45 days if I remember right. 

No pips yet and it's been about 40 days...Not looking good.

No, it's not looking good at all. 

[LOOK!!!!]

LOOK!!!!

It looks like 2 eyases in there. Hard to tell but....

Thank you CPF!!!

What a pretty falcon she is. Like her momma!!

Definitely beautiful like Mariah!  I'm so happy for Linn and Reuben!

Very nice!  Thanks for sharing!

If stress could be the reason Unity isn't brooding her eggs, maybe that's why Beauty isn't spending too much time in the nest box with her eggs.  Archer appears to be the primary brooder the past few days and when Beauty is on the eggs, she seems very unsettled.

First hatch today! 

Pip is 2 weeks old today and doing well!

Excellent!  Thanks for posting, Donna!