



News, video, and more about Utica's Peregrine Falcons
Last evening the hole in the egg became even more obvious and the chick inside began calling in earnest. This morning, calling from the chick became even more intense and a small piece of egg shell was seen falling from the egg. Most probably the hatch of egg # 1 will take place sometime this morning.
It looks like we may have a legitimate pip this time. This time the egg that has the white spot (along with what looks to be a corresponding hole) appears also to be the first egg that was laid back on April 1st. That would certainly be the egg that we would expect to hatch first. It’s now been 32 days since full-time incubation began, and 33 days is the incubation period that the eggs required last year. We encourage falcon fans to keep watching and please alert us if you see a hatch or even if you get a clearer view of the pip. Stay tuned!!!
Today, 4 days earlier than the first day of our declared “hatch window” (May 6 – 13), we saw what we thought could be a pipped egg. A small roundish white mark near the top of one of the eggs might in fact be a pip. A pip is created when the chick inside the egg begins to break out of the shell from the inside. We still need to search through our archival footage to see if the spot was already on the egg and is just a blemish on the shell. This is the most likely answer, but we should stay alert, just in case. At the very least this will be a good dress rehearsal for late this week when the real thing is more apt to happen.