Relay Feeding and Overnight Brooding: Three Days in the Cup

The three days from Saturday through Monday resolve into a single legible rhythm: female on the cup from roughly 20:30 each night until first light, dawn handoff to both adults, a relay through the afternoon, a dusk cluster, and repeat. Within that constancy, small details accumulate — an eye opening, a count ticking upward, a male perching closer than usual to the rim.

Saturday, May 16

The night opened with the female cycling on and off the cup in gaps as short as one or two minutes — the motion trigger catching chick movement in the uncovered intervals as early as 00:22. By 03:22 gapes were already visible in IR. She held this restless pattern through 05:30 before the day’s first true feeding at 06:07.

The male’s red plumage identified him at 06:33 — his first confirmed visit of the day. From there the relay locked in: male at 07:00 (four open mouths), 07:50, 08:23, 08:45; female brooding between visits and feeding directly at comparable frequency. Between feedings the chicks routinely remained unattended for stretches of 10–30 minutes, gaping without an adult present. By 12:55 a clip resolved five chicks gaping simultaneously. The day’s anomaly came at 18:20, when a single clip counted six shapes in the cup — almost certainly a pile-and-angle artifact against the confirmed five-egg clutch, but the highest single-clip count of the three-day window. At 15:37 both adults overlapped at the nest across two consecutive clips — the only confirmed dual-presence of Saturday, though both adults would again appear together on Sunday evening.

Sunday, May 17

The overnight pattern held with minimal variation. Through the small hours the female’s brief absences recurred steadily, each lasting a minute or two and each exposing the huddled chick mass in the cup. At 05:56 she departed into first light, revealing five chicks gaping — the first color view of the brood for that day. The male arrived at 06:20.

The most notable development of the three days: at 10:26, a single chick is documented with its eye clearly open — the first such description across all preceding footage. The preceding two days had logged eyes uniformly closed. By 16:53 another clip counted six shapes, again likely an overlap artifact, but the pattern across days is real: the brood is filling the cup more completely as bodies grow. Three afternoon clips (11:13, 15:47, 16:09) showed pale, speckled oval objects alongside the chicks. Their NIR-albedo in those frames sat distinctly above the surrounding nest material — consistent with unhatched egg or eggshell fragment. Whether one or two eggs failed to hatch remains unresolved. Both adults were at the nest together around 19:33.

Monday, May 18

Monday’s overnight brooding was the most sustained of the three nights: brief absences at 01:18, 01:33, 02:08, 02:48, 03:24, and around 05:32, each only a minute or two. At 02:08 three chicks were visible in the gap; by 05:13 several showed beneath the adult in IR.

First feeding at 06:01 — five gaping chicks, male confirmed at 06:15. At 08:29 the male perched on the bookshelf directly beside the nest while the female was inside with the chicks: cooperative proximity, no displacement. His confirmed solo visits ran 10:43, 11:36, 12:17, 13:32, 14:21, 15:27, 15:54, 16:32, 17:20, 17:58, and 18:50 — the densest documented run of the three days. The female settled continuously from roughly 20:33.

Synthesis

The relay is stable. Both adults hold a 15–40 minute feeding cycle each day; the overnight brooding onset near 20:30 and morning departure near 05:45 are nearly clock-consistent across all three evenings. What shifts is detail: one eye open by day two, bodies pressing harder against the cup rim by day three, anomalous NIR-albedo ovals persisting in a handful of afternoon clips as an unresolved thread. The chicks gape into empty air between visits on all three days — the demand is constant; the supply is, so far, meeting it.