Day 23 — Sustained feeding by both adults; possible unhatched eggs still present

Female on the nest continuously from midnight through approximately 05:50, with brief absences recurring throughout the night — chicks visible in the exposed cup during most gaps. At 05:56 she departs and five chicks are clearly visible in color for the first time today, several gaping.

Male makes his first documented visit at 06:20 with five chicks gaping, then returns on a roughly 20–40 minute cycle through the afternoon and evening. The female feeds separately at comparable frequency. Gaping is active in essentially every feeding clip. Between adult visits the cup is left unattended for variable stretches — sometimes 10–30 minutes — with chicks visible throughout. Female resumes continuous brooding from approximately 20:30 onward.

At 16:53, after the male departs, six shapes are counted in the cup — one more than the confirmed five-egg clutch. Most likely a counting artifact given overlapping bodies at this age.

Three afternoon clips (11:13, 15:47, 16:09) describe pale, speckled oval objects alongside visible chicks, with counts of 2–3 objects. If these are accurate rather than eggshell fragments or visual artifacts, one or two eggs may have failed to hatch and are still present in the nest material.

Pipeline: No infrastructure changes this day.

Day’s metrics.

• Clips: 463
• Sunrise / sunset: 05:56 / 20:13 PT
• On-cup share: 35.2%
• Dad visits: 0
• Brooding clips: 170
• Feeding clips: 0
• Chick gapes: 1
• Max chicks visible: 3