Three Weeks Old - 6/7/03
With the chicks' backs to us we can observe their rapid development. Although they were probably born on consecutive days we see varying degrees of both girth and feather growth. The chick lying on the left is clearly the oldest.
On June 8 we banded two chicks at the Sweetmeadow platform; they were about 5 1/2 weeks old! Each year since 1996 Sweetmeadow has been ahead of the other nests in producing young. There is such a wide range among our local birds that some of the nests on the river still have unhatched eggs. Our subject nest for this essay normally runs earlier than other nests by about 2 weeks.
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