The total egg count for our breeding choughs is now up to seventeen.

A rare view of seventeen chough eggs

To mark Her Majesty the Queen’s 90th birthday, our oldest female chough, aged 18, laid our most recent egg. She is a remarkable bird and amazingly spiritedly for such an age. (The chough, not the Queen).

Nest number four continues to “faff”…

According to our calculations, the first eggs in nest three will be hatching in the next two or three days. We will then switch the webcam view to show the new arrivals.

You can see the webcam here.

The breeding choughs at Paradise Park have now increased their total egg count to eleven.

Seclusion aviary nests showing eleven eggs

Three of the nests are progressing well, with counts of four, three, and four eggs respectively. The female in nest two laid the third egg this morning, and hopefully will add one or two more. We think that the females in nests one and three have now finished, as there have been no new eggs for several days.

The birds in nests four and five are still “faffing about”. This is a technical term used by chough breeders. It means that the birds are still adding (and subtracting) to the nests. Generally, the male will bring material into the nest and a few minutes later the female will take it out again!

However, the choughs in nests four and five were later last year – and they also built “looser” nests, so we are still expecting more eggs to come.

You can see the webcam here.