The group watching over a pair of endangered falcons living atop the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Hamilton conveyed their excitement Sunday upon discovering the couple now have four chicks.
During an early Sunday feeding, three of the youngsters were spotted on a surveillance camera clamouring for food from mom McKeever.
“As we watched the chicks get fed, we began to see the egg in the foreground crack apart,” a spokesperson for the Hamilton Community Peregrine Project said in an online post.
“Over the next half hour, our fourth and final peregrine chick hatched.”
McKeever and mate Judson showed off three eggs in late March at a nesting spot that has seen several of their species procreate over the last 28 years.
The project accurately predicted the pair would “carefully time” the incubation of the eggs so that they would all hatch together.
On Sunday, all four eggs hatched within 24 hours, which is expected to lead to constant feedings over the coming month.
The chicks will be dependent on the parents for about two months before being kicked out to fend on their own.
McKeever arrived in the Hamilton area in January 2022, shortly after the death of Lily, the hotel ledge’s previous resident female, the same month.
The falcon is named in honour of Kay McKeever, who co-founded the Owl Foundation — a Vineland Station sanctuary that rescues injured owls before sheltering, nursing and releasing them back into the wild.
Judson is McKeever’s mate. He arrived in Hamilton from Buffalo, N.Y., at the end of the nesting season in 2021.
The pair had four chicks during last year’s mating season.
Status updates on McKeever and Juson can be seen at falcon.hamiltonnature.org.