Well, it is quite sad to confirm what we all already know. One of the nestlings has died. Sorry, I have been in the field out of phone range all day to report sooner.

From a brief review of the tapes it appears the nestlings spread out in all directions and this overwhelmed F24’s ability to keep on top of things. With one in the gutter (a new occurrence for this year) and one at the extreme end of the nest box, F24 suffered from the “Vegemite Syndrome”, which is just a matter of being spread too thin!

From my experience, that far corner gets really hot with no air circulating and these nestlings are too young to efficiently moderate their own body temperatures. If this one did in fact die from heat stress it will be the first out of 78 since 1992 to succumb this way. It was a short life and it filled us all with joy whilst it was here.

The adults now have three young to focus their attention on and I am confident they will have this in hand through to fledging.