Fledge Watching 2021

Busy busy is I!  Excuses, excuses, right?  HAHA!  Anyone else you could say that but anyone who knows me, knows that I am.  Nest box monitoring, home garden work, peregrine falcon fledge watches and of course that thing called work.

With only 2 chicks are our nearby falcon site, it's still dragging along with the monitoring of the one bird.  Her name is Tornado.  I rescued her just last week.  She fledged a couple days earlier but late one evening has a slight "misstep" with her flight and getting to a roof top, she lost altitude and the watchers present lost sight of her.  As they closed up the watch for the night, Tornado was still not to be seen.  I offered to do a drive by after my work shift.  I got the information on where she was last seen and started there.  Luck have it, I found her sitting atop the gym on an upper mezzanine level.  She was probably 15 ft away from me, just sitting there and looking at me.  I was happy she was okay, looked well with how she sat, and she was alert.  I said "goodnight" to her and went home.  I vowed to be back as early as I could the next morning.

Tornado on the roof of the gym.

I got back to the site about 7 hours later, much earlier than I liked, but I knew it had to be done.  I started my search where I saw here the night before and found her on the ground like this.

She was maybe 25 feet from where I saw her the night before.  She is in very close range to two towers here so while her laying position here was a little concerning, my thoughts were there was no way she could have hurt herself in the hours from when I saw her at 10:30 the night before to the finding her before 6 the following morning.  I only took this photo with my phone as a record of how I found her, to share with others, just in case.  Then it was time to grab her.

Tornado was just watching me, not reacting, until I got near her with my towel in my hands.  As I got the towel over her, all hell broke loose.  The timid young falcon turned into a hell beast.  While I had the towel over her body, she managed to get her head out and that kept her fighting.  She was trying to bite me and also flip herself over.  I know a bird of prey will lay on it's back and try to defend itself with it's talons as well.  While I wanted to help her get off the walkway and eventually back up to the roof tops, I was not going to get myself torn up in the process.  I managed to keep her down with one hand and the towel while I got my hoodie off with my free hand.  As soon as I got my hoodie over her head, she submitted.

It was a long walk back to the car and thankfully I took the advice from my friend Lucie to bring a larger carrier instead of the small rescue one I keep in the car.  The smaller carrier is fine for male falcons but not a female who is noticeably larger.  Also I had the smarts to ensure the carrier door was open in the car in case I was needing to put a falcon inside.  She's a big girl and being wrapped in a towel and a hoodie certainly increased her size.  If I only had the smaller carrier, there is no way I could have gotten her inside.  

I got her in the carrier and slowly got my towel and hoodie back without much struggle.  As soon as we made eye contact, Tornado hissed and snarled at me, wings flaring.  I can only imagine what she was saying to me, probably make a truck driver blush.  The open wings I took as a good sign that she didn't have any real injuries during her mishap prior to the rescue.

Tornado was released later that day and things have been very slow since.  She's reluctant to fly much.  Maybe she's a little sore from her bump which brought her down?  Maybe she's lost some confidence and is holding back?  She has been taking a flight once a day, right near dark according to Lucie who is monitoring Tornado and her brother Dart every evening now.  The flights are short, from one building to another, but that's good.  Don't push it.  Start small.  One day I don't think she flew at all.  So in a sense, the watch continues, just on Tornado.  Thankfully Lucie is going daily.  There is a man who lives in one of the condos named Roger who is also monitoring every day for a short period, basically trying to get a head count, make an observation and lets us know what he sees.  I'm still popping in weekday mornings.  Let's hope Tornado gets back on track and progresses as a developing young falcon should with her parents and brother over the summer.

Now, as for her brother Dart, he's doing amazing.  Right out of the gate from his first flight, he's staying high and without too much trouble.  He's already doing food transfers with the adults everyday.  That is something to see.  The adult comes in with prey and Dart flies out to take the prey from the adult.  He learns how to catch the prey in flight and recognizes what prey is.  He's landing on ledges at the towers with ease, avoiding the reflective glass.  I did witness him hit the glass a few days back, it was during one of these food transfers.  I think he was too in the moment of getting the food that he didn't pay attention to the building.  I watched him go for the food, bump the glass, lose altitude for maybe 50 ft, quickly regain himself and then fly away from the glass tower, going around the buildings and disappearing out back.  I spent the next hour looking for him without any success.  Thankfully Lucie came down in the afternoon and spotted him with Tornado on one of the roof tops.  It's not for the faint of heart to watch a bird hit the glass.

The other morning Roger and I got a good show of Dart doing yet another food transfer and he ended up on a rooftop right near where I was parked.

Juvenile peregrine falcons are such stunning birds to look at.  I love their colours and markings.

I hope to share a great update on the birds, especially Tornado in a couple weeks.

I've got another little fledge watch happening elsewhere after finding a pair of young red-tailed hawk chicks in a tree.  The birds aren't quite ready to fly so I am keeping an eye on them daily as I pass them on my way to work.  It's great that I don't have to go out of my way to see these guys.

Close up of the one.  Full zoom, some cropping.  I won't release the location of the birds because I am sure they don't need a crowd of people looking at them.  Even my 90 second stop and look is more than enough human disturbance.  I first spotted the birds almost a week ago.  I don't pull over every day; what's the point?  It's nice to know they are.  I will look out for them every day on my way to work.  Just make sure they are still up in the tree or when they fledge, that they are off the ground, away from the dangers like traffic from a very nearby busy road.

I have so much more to blog about, right from our backyard but will get to that very soon (I hope).

How are you all doing?  What are you seeing?