Falcon mom Annie got her first hatchling to hatch on Monday afternoon, and there are three more eggs left to go!
The Cal Falcons folks are hosting a big Hatch Day Celebration on Tuesday, with a big screen showing a live feed of the Campanile falcon nest outside the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. There's even merch this year, with a t-shirt on sale featuring a peregrine falcon with a baby carrier strapped to it — with proceeds going to help support the falcon nest cams.
But one of the eggs hatched ahead of schedule on Monday, and you can currently watch Annie sitting on her three eggs and one fuzzy pink baby bird.
There's a 20-minute video of the whole hatching process below.
Starting at 9 a.m. Tuesday, the Hatch Day jumbotron madness will begin at the corner of Oxford and Addison streets.
And at 2 p.m., there will be a live Q&A with Cal Falcons biologists Sean Peterson and Lynn Schofield.
How soon will Annie and Lou's other three kids be hatching, you ask? Peterson tells Berkeleyside that they all typically hatch with 48 hours, despite each having been laid a few days apart. And Annie has had clutches of four eggs in the past, however typically only three of them hatch. This is Annie's seventh clutch of eggs in the Campanile nest, and she is on her third mate in a year, after last year's unfortunate passing of her mate of five years, Grinnell.
"It’s a little strange that she’s never had all her eggs hatch before,” Peterson tells Berkeleyside. “It could just be random chance, or it could be some characteristic unique to Annie. It’s really hard to say."
The birds will now grow very quickly, and will be fledged and starting their flying practice by June.
Previously: Photos: Very Good Berkeley Falcon Dad Brings Food for Chicks, Even Though They’re Not Hatched Yet