The fourth egg has dropped. Falcon egg that is.
According to Glenn Stewart, director of the University of California at Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group, all four falcon eggs have been laid in a nesting box off the 18th floor of City Hall. The last of the "clutch" was laid on Wednesday about 6 a.m.
Stewart said incubation lasts about 33 days, and the eggs could begin hatching just around Good Friday.
The eggs belong to parents, Clara and Fernando El Cohete, who last year gave birth to four falcons.
As is tradition, schoolchildren in San Jose will be able to participate in an annual contest to name the birds, and the winners will be announced next month.
Stewart has been banding falcon chicks' legs since 2007, the same year Clara, the adult female falcon, and her first known mate, Jose perched on a ledge outside city hall. Since then, Clara, and a series of falcon lovers, have given birth to a total of 23 eggs, as of last year.
In 2008, one of the eggs didn't hatch, and in 2010, one bird died after three days.
Local
In San Francisco, four eggs have been laid this year on top of the PG&E building. These falcons are four days ahead of the San Jose falcons in terms of laying eggs, and they should hatch four days earlier too.
If you're interested in donating to the research group or watching the falcons live on a FalconCam, click on To donate to the UC Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group and see the falcons on a live falcon cam, click here. To watch the falcons on the city's FalconCam, click here.
