Yes, they are nice. Later that day, in the evening, they had a long nice flirt inside the nest.

@@picapicalife thats nice. Hope for an successful season with Chicks and eggs

Thank you.

Thank you. It's getting almost a bit overwhelming at the time (we are not complaining though), but we try to keep up. We are getting a little concerned about the mag chicks. They should have turned up by now. And the parents' nest behavior is not what we would have expected for the adults being busy feeding hungry chicks. Mags do check out the next year's nest possibilities, but we think they spend 'too much time' in doing so (in the steel tree). This area has a history of being infested by gape worms. Gape worms are not lethal to big adults, but very dangerous for small birds and chicks. We have already 'lost' all the mag chicks twice to those worms. Years ago the most common birds around our food station were Green finches. Now we have not seen any for many years. Gape worms are said to be the cause. Green finches have problems all over (we read). Gher is doing better and worse. On and off. But we have accepted her not being able to manage her fears and anger. She really seems to try the best she can, but then it all snaps again. Even though she is strenuous to herself (and a bit to us too), she's a good mother. The chicks are doing as well as hoped for. Yes, Kid2 has a self confidence maybe bigger than his body. But he learns. We have been watching Kid1 today. She seems to do a little better. The Footies are so nice. We still don't really know whether they have only this single egg or they have one egg left in the nest and other chicks have already left. We think we will find out the next days. We don't want to disturb them or harm their trust by getting too close to their nest. The Shegulls are doing fine. Nice chicks. The last egg will most probably stay as an egg. We expect the chicks to leave the nest in a few days. Lady and Wing seem to have started their 'steady incubation'. Normally this means all the eggs are laid. But we can be wrong... As said several times, they are growing on us, both of them. The constuction on the top of the steel tree is meant to make other big birds to stay off. Mags don't usually like others to be there and usually gulls stay away. But this one obviously didn't read the instrucions... There are many eagles here. More than most people know. But by following the gulls, we know how often and how many. It is possible an eagle took Ghim, but we don't know. We can see them way up there. Because of their incredible sight they can still see everything from that distance. Thank you for your update. Good luck with 'your' birds.

@@picapicalife I think Gape Worm is similar in its effects to Trichomoniasis (?) which we have witnessed quite a lot over the years in several species (or maybe it was Gape Worm), both truly horrid things ,it was heart breaking to watch as there was nothing we could do. That's so sad to have lost all the chicks twice, I do hope this hasn't happened again. We did have one success story though with a young Jackdaw, apologies if I've told you this before, who my partner managed to hand feed outside, we didn't have to catch him as he came when called and was always there waiting. His parents had abandoned him, no doubt thinking he would die, we did too to be honest but after feeding him for quite some time he grew so much stronger. He eventually went off with the other young Jackdaws but still came to visit, maybe still does but we can't be sure it's him. The really sad thing is we have only ever seen one Greenfinch (though we get Chaffinches, Bullfinches and Goldfinches) on our feeders in all the years we've been feeding and it was very sick indeed with, we thought, Trichomoniasis. I can relate to feeling overwhelmed, love them all as I do, I've been at the point of tears or a screaming fit several times lately as it really has been mayhem here! There are huge delights to be had but my goodness I'm looking foward to some peace! It might be for the best if Wing and Lady only have two, less stress for them. Wow, I would love to see Eagles , we'd have to travel quite far to even stand a very small chance of seeing one. I'm guessing you have both White tailed and Golden Eagles there, and Osprey.

@@user-uy7qw2nx5o Yes, our National Vet Institute confirmed it was Trichomonas gallinae in one of the dead mag chicks we sent to them. Every year we see some sparrow chicks 'gaping'. The last few years there have been a little less. Thank you for your story about the Jackdaw. Still no more eggs for Lady and Wing, and they are on the steady 'work'. There are quite some eagles here (to be eagles...). It's the White tailed. They are the common ones on the seaside here. There are Golden eagles in this country, but we have not seen them here. The same to the Osprey. The White tails usually float in the air, on a very high altitude. But some times they pass in eye height and even landing very close to us. They are very nice and majestic. Whenever an eagle flies low, the crows, gulls and the mags are despeately trying to chase it. When the chasers close in, the eagles make a little twist with their wing-tips and they are suddenly several meters ahead again.

@@picapicalife Awesome birds indeed! There was a tragedy here last year when two immature White Tailed Eagles, not yet at breeding age, (who'd been brought to Ireland as part of a Reintroduction Programme) were found dead, poisoned intentionally, one of them was brought over from Norway. Absolutely horrendous behaviour!! That was a good thing you did to consult the Vets and find out the reason for their deaths, and then ensure thorough cleaning of the nest in the steel tree.

@@user-uy7qw2nx5o Yes, it's too bad such potentially wonderful creatures (humans) can act so stupidly as they some times do. Yes, as you mentioned earlier it's challenging to try to do good things and at the same time not create problems. We also think it's difficult to find this balance. Close following of birds (or any animal) can be 'problematic'. Every year something happens that makes us confused and feeling not able to 'cope'. Some things we do are good in one way and potentially bad in another. We think of this dilemma all the time. Like summer is nice. It's warm, but also humid. Winter has less infections, but can be very cold and harsh. Warmth and humidity are perfect for chicks but also for bacterias, mold and paracites... Our actions gather a lot of individs on a small area, on both our nest spots and our food station. This is ok for the birds, but also for infectious paracites. Earlier we were also concerned about making birds trust us too much, making them more vulnerable to people that don't 'like' birds. This is not an issue any more. We have learned most birds can keep different people apart. The 'problem' is also that now we see a lot of things that earlier went on unnoticed to us. Some times we feel (desperately) we should do something, but there is nothing good we can do. Some times incidents happens that have never happened before. We try to not create or attract probems and conflicts, but there are always something outside the reach of our predictions. Nature is complex, much more complex than our minds. We try not to think we can control it (of course), only do things that do good. But we really find it challenging. We are perfectly aware of the small number of birds we 'reach', but we try to think 'something' is better than 'nothing'. And if enough people... It's very tempting to think nature is so strong, there is no need to do anyting. Sadly this is not true anymore. We think we will never get close to that 'case closed' or 'functional solution' feeling here, but we will continue doing what we can anyway. This was a long 'mind flow', but when it starts, it can be hard to stop...

They survive. Summer climate is after August. Is sure. Is not late

Yes. it is. The roof is inhabited (more or less) by Gher, her chicks, Wing and Lady, the OCs and an unknown number of sparrows. Being so many and staying so closely to each other, they are doing remarkably well. Our concern was exaggerated, this time. Some small disputes as said, even kind Wing has told one of the chicks it was getting too close to Lady in the nest. But they seem to have found a functional balance. Yesterday a Lesser black-back landed and started to 'steal' food. This is what we really try to avoid. Gher's chicks are safe for them now, but 'all' the gulls were still very agitated, even the OCs tried to help chasing it away. There are many chicks not big enough to be safe for big gulls in the area. Lady's and Wing's project is very exiting. They probably know what they are doing, even though they are a young couple. But as mentioned it's much later than we have experienced before on the roof. They seem to be the last of all the gulls in the colony. The OCs behavior might look harder than it is in the reality for the chicks. If the OC would really harm the chicks, they could. As far as we can see, they only seem to learn the gull chicks a lesson if they think they need it. So far there have been no serious incidents. We don't know what happened to Kid1. And today even Kid3 is limping. Both girls, both limping on the left leg. This has never happened before. Last year one of the chicks were hurt in the leg, but this was caused by an accidental fall from the roof. Luckily we think the roof is the best place to recover from injury. We keep contact with the Footies and the Shegulls every day. They are very nice. Yes, here too. We are getting a little concerned about the mag chicks now. Mags don't manage to raise chicks successfully every time. Thank you.