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I took these pictures of a falco subbuteo (Eurasian hobby) chick a couple of days ago when I helped my father with one nest. The nest was some 15 or 20 meters up a pine and normally I would not have had an opportunity to see the chicks at all without climbing up myself, but this one jumped out of the nest immediately and hopped from branch to branch until it fell the last three meters or so to the ground.

Since I had a good camera in my Samsung phone, I snapped a few pics while dad was still up the tree and put a ring on the other one before climbing down to ring this young one (and then back up to put it back in the nest). It was good thing the stump was there, it made for a perfect platform for the little gal to sit on. That falcon chick is female, a male would be substantially smaller. It's actually larger than an adult at this point.

If you look carefully, you can see the ends of the tail feathers and wing primaries poking out of all the fluffy down in some of the pics. They were already well on their way to being fully developed, the smaller feathers come in later (because there is not quite as much to grow there as in the primary feathers).

You can see some excellent pictures of an adult hobby here.

SDN's new mascot. Small, fluffy, and looks like he'll rip your nose off at the slightest provocation.

SHE will rip your face off. With birds, it's usually the female that's larger and more aggressive.

Broomstick wrote:SHE will rip your face off. With birds, it's usually the female that's larger and more aggressive.

true but this little one seems to too young to tell the gender yet and it's not like male falcons are totally docile either, well I can't tell the gender yet an expert on birds of prey might be able.

Re-read the OP - already determined, Edi's father actually is a bird expert.

Broomstick wrote:

Lord Revan wrote:

Broomstick wrote:SHE will rip your face off. With birds, it's usually the female that's larger and more aggressive.

true but this little one seems to too young to tell the gender yet and it's not like male falcons are totally docile either, well I can't tell the gender yet an expert on birds of prey might be able.

Re-read the OP - already determined, Edi's father actually is a bird expert.

Broomstick is correct in this case, the information is in the OP. I wouldn't have been able to determine the gender of the bird either, but my father has been an amateur ornithologist for 53 years and he made the determination. "Amateur" here meaning that ornithology is his hobby instead of his profession, but you need some serious expertise to be granted the permit to ring birds in the first place. There's a battery of tests you have to pass and when you put the 53 years of experience on top of those, it's damn impressive.

According to him, a male fledgling could not have been that big, given how small this species of falcon is overall.

Aww. Cute little thing. I love baby birds. They're a bit ugly to some people, but I find the fluff really cute.