P is for Peregrine

Well it was a very busy week last week assisting in the fledge watch of our young Falcons at the Etobicoke nest site. Most mornings I was awake by 5am, at the site before 6am, spend 4 hours or so watching the birds, and then head home to recharge before starting work.

It was a pretty good watch this year. Only one of the birds, Ferris, got into enough trouble and needed rescuing. Everyone else stayed high up and has not hit anything. Let's hope it stays that way.

I did miss some action, which is par for the course when I can't be there from sun up to sun down. But those stories are not mine to tell.

I did find myself one evening hopping out of the truck and seconds later was dashing out into Bloor Street, escorting Mel as he took a low flight across the street. Traffic was well off and while I could not run along side this speedy bird, I hoped my presence in the street would slow any traffic heading towards us from either direction. And if Mel could not get any height, that I could be there to pick him up before he could possibly make a dash out into the street. He did get enough height to land on the concourse above Bloor, about one story up from the sidewalk, and that is where he spent the night. Next morning he was gone. He fledged on Friday June 19th and by Monday, he had found his way back up to the top of the nest building and on the ledge at that!

Not sure how long he could legally "park" himself there. LoL! No Peregrines allowed! *groan*

Close up of Mel.

Ferris took first flight on Sunday June 21st. He explored the area late in the afternoon and little by little came lower and lower to the ground. It seems he picked a better spot to spend the night. *wink wink*

Monday morning he was still in the same spot.

This shot gives you a better idea on how low he is to street level and how close he is to Bloor Street with passing traffic. I'm directly across the street from him, watching, waiting, growing roots under my shoes, collecting road dust as the hours passed us by.

P is for Peregrine!

About 2.5 hours later Ferris took flight. He jetted south, right over my head and the line of low buildings behind me. He did a circle and tried to get height, heading back to the nest tower. A smart move, realizing this was not possible, he turned again, headed south across the street, over my head again, over the buildings and had a time out in the neighbourhood somewhere. Bruce, Roger and myself searched for him without a sighting. So many trees he could have gone into and no birds were alarm calling to his presence. I remember last year with Skyla, she took a beating from Crows and Robins in a tree out front of someone's house all afternoon.

Anyways, a couple more hours of watching, occasional search for Ferris, and I had to leave to get ready for work.

A few more hours passed when Bruce spotted Ferris coming out from the neighbourhood, flying across Bloor, trying to get the height and once again not being successful. He did a bit of "Peregrine Ping Pong" as I call it, hitting the buildings as he struggled with what he was trying to achieve. And once again, being smart about things, backing out of this idea and now looking for a safe place to land again. Unfortunately his energy was quite spent. He missed a roof top, the Bell building to be exact, by about 4 feet. He caught the wall and tried to climb up but he dropped to the ground, less than 10 feet from where Bruce stood. Bruce quickly gathered him up, set him in a carrier and tucked him away in the ESL security area to rest the remainder of the day away. Ferris was released on the roof top after dark and got another chance at this flying thing the next day.

Ninja took his first flight on June 22nd, some point during the search for Ferris, Ninja snuck out. The most amazing thing happened that he found his way home, back on the nest ledge later that night. I've never seen or heard of such a thing in my 5 years of helping watch this site!

The week got blurry as the days passed, fatigue catching up with me.

Glider was the last to take flight and I cannot remember the exact day he did. Thursday June 25th I am thinking right now. He did stay high and mostly out of sight. To this day, he's still up there, doing great.

A cam shot on the 25th, Ferris first thing in the morning. Amazing to me that they are making it back on to that nest ledge so early in the days of flight.

Look up, way up, and you can see the nest ledge, right below the top of the building. Can you see the cameras up there?

I arrived later in the morning on the 26th. I only saw mom, O'Connor, high up on the nest building, and she was screaming her head off to something in the east. What? No idea. I did not see any of the kids, nor did I see dad Lucky. I gave Tracy an update of this after spending 30 or so minutes looking around. I said I had to run some errands and would return in about an hour. As I got back to the site, I discover Tracy is now on scene. She had spotted a couple of the kids by this time, we did a search of the perimeter and found another. Great seeing them but now to get some tape colors. Tracy picked off Mel (white) and Ferris (yellow) but this third bird was in such an angle that we could not see his legs. Time for me there was limited, I had to leave for work soon. Tracy walked me back to my truck so we could talk about the birds and things some more. As we get to my truck, out come some of the young Falcons. The next 10 minutes, so high in the sky, was the reward of doing this watch. The kids were playing! It was Mel and Ferris! What a sight to behold! What sounds they made as they chased each other up there.

After I left, Tracy managed to get all 4 of the young birds, positively ID them by tape color and all was good.

The watch is done. Nothing we can do now other than spot checks and if a bird ever gets into trouble, there are enough people in the area who know who to call. One of our fellow watchers, Kathy, works in the building, so she is there 5 days a week.

I can't believe it is over. There was such a build up from their hatches early in May to this watch. The anticipation, the excitement, the stress... and now it's done until next year.

This certainly was one of the better watches in my time. While we stress about the birds there was no real stress this time. Nobody got hurt. And nobody died.

Wow! 11 months to go until this all ramps up again.

Lastly, curious people from social media stop in at the site. One or two a year come looking for me. I'm assuming it's people from the birding pages where I share the updates and am always seeking extra eyes to the skies. If I am not there, they ask if I am around, never say who they are and end up leaving. Introduce yourself and it would be nice to know who is coming out. Perhaps communicate with me about my times at the watch and we can coordinate a meeting time. Don't be shy you guys. :)

As always, I thank you all for stopping in. Back again soon with some great news!

Layton and Shania, first to fledge

I can't believe almost 3 weeks has gone by since we started the Peregrine Falcon fledge watch at Etobicoke Sunlife.  And so much has happened throughout.

I had no idea what this watch was going to be like, how it would feel with Big Frank gone.  But with a mutual friend named Bruce stepping into Frank's big shoes, he sure made it a lot easier than what I had been envisioning.  Bruce put in 14-16 hr days for nearly 2 weeks!  I racked up over 40 hours in 10 days myself and Angie also put in more hours than ever before.  The Falcons had even more support from others as they have for a number of years with Kathy and Bailie in the area a lot throughout the days.  Others deserving mention include Sandra and Rene, plus our friends Dave and Andi made a couple stop ins, and Cori all the way from Scarborough another day,  to see how things were going.

It's been a difficult watch at times, very exciting at others, and a lot of the time just boring as all get out waiting for something to happen.  The company was great, the weather was perfect, so that certainly helped.  But after hours and hours of nothing some days, it's just exhausting.  And then when the stress hits when the young birds start bouncing around...  hoo boy!  I had a few moments where I was gasping watching them.

I wish I took notes throughout this as so much is crammed in my memory now and with this sudden heat wave, I'm just plain exhausted, but really need to get some of this out of me and to whoever cares to give this a read.

The first chick to fledge (take flight from the nest) was Layton.  A female, the heaviest of the bunch, and named after Jack Layton.  It was agreed with those involved to name these birds after some famous Canadians.  I was at work when Layton took flight, actually I was just getting ready to pack it in for the weekend, as it was about 1:55pm on Friday June 14th when she flew.  It was no surprise that she ended up in need of rescue from the watchers later that evening.  Females are the heavier of the two sexes and almost always need help the first flights out, it's just the way it is.

But I raced down there in high excitement knowing we had a fledge that day.  I had bet the first fledge being on this day, and on Big Frank going first, since usually the males do take flight first; but whatever, we finally had one off the ledge.  By the time I got there around 3:15pm or so, Layton had got herself into a spot where she would spend the next 5 hours with me, face to face, before I left for the day.  She was just to the side of the south entrance to Sunlife, about 15 ft above the walk, and maybe 20 ft away from Bloor Street.

The funny thing through our encounter was all the passersby that wondered what the heck I was looking at, or we if Angie or Kathy were there with me.  It was Kathy who gave me the idea to stand in front of her along the way, hopefully keeping her from getting the idea of flying down into the street.  The ledge she was in was pretty tight and if you weren't looking right at it, you missed it.  So here I am with the big Sigma pointed up a few times, towel over my shoulder, and for the most part just looking right up at her.  I'd say 3 in 20 people asked me what I was so focused on.  And then they were quite thrilled at the sight.  One guy though, he was really curious but wouldn't ask.  He kept looking around the area to the right of me, and of course he was missing the bird completely.  He then leaned on the wall in front of me, totally clueless a Peregrine Falcon was over his head.  I could tell he wasn't playing with a full deck so I kept my focus on Layton, or appeared to be, just not making eye contact with this man.  Next thing I know he's leaning on the same light standard that I am, opposite side to me of course, and still out of eye line with the bird, and suddenly he starts singing "Rain Drops Keep Falling On My Head"!  What the hell dude?!?!

Raindrops keep falling on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red
Crying's not for me
Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin'
Because I'm free
Nothing's worrying me 

I wanted to laugh out loud.  But I stayed quiet and on the bird.  Eventually the guy walked away, still turning every now and then to look in my direction.  8:30pm was coming up, both Angie and I had been up since about 4:15am, and with Bruce and Kathy still on watch, we said "goodnight" to them and of course Layton as well.

We were barely home half an hour and we get a call from Bruce that Layton came down to the sidewalk and they picked her up, with a bit of chase across Bloor, and up it too.  She was released back on the roof about 10pm that night.

We spent a lot of the weekend at Sunlife, probably 6 hours each day.  Not much happened through those days with the young birds.

But come Monday June 17th, it was Shania's turn to take flight.  She had a rougher go of it than Layton, a few more bounces and tumbles, many hours on some condo window ledges, Pigeon netting, a flight over the houses south of Bloor Street and tried to make it up to the nest ledge without success and I watched her strike the reflective glass.  My heart was in my throat as I watched her struggle to make the climb to get up there, not realize the glass is a solid structure, hit it and tumble down the side of the building, trying to grasp at the glass without any luck of course and come to the ground out of sight of us due to the mezzanine on the second level.  I knew the strike wasn't fatal and she worked hard to stay in the air, which helped break her fall.  But I still felt some panic when she disappeared.

Here is Shania hanging off someone's balcony.  

Shania around the other side of the condo, just above Bloor Street, hanging off someone's screen window.  You can see the look of "what the hell am I doing?" on her.

She spent maybe 15 minutes on this window before darting off and flying south across Bloor into the neighbourhood.

As the minutes passed, which seemed like forever, waiting for her to pop up somewhere, all sorts of crazy worrying thoughts went through my head.  You can probably nail a few of them if you think about it.  And then suddenly she popped up, almost exactly where her sister Layton did a few days earlier, just on the opposite side of the entrance way.  Go figure!  Maybe she watched her sister from above on Friday?  I'm drawing a blank on how long this went on for, I just know it wasn't nearly as long as Layton's stay up there, as it was later in the day.  In the end, the bird beat me in the staring contest, and I just had to get my butt home and to bed for the 4:30am wake up.  And just like Layton, Shania came down to the sidewalk less than half an hour after I left the nest site.

Oh Shania...  you and your siblings are giving me gray hair!

Stay tuned for more on our local Falcon family!

Father's Day with the Falcons

Friday was a bad day at Sunlife as some of you are aware from my previous blog. We visited Saturday and it was quite painful for Angie to be there so soon after the tragedy. But we did a scope and search that evening and located all 3 young Falcons plus one adult high up on the buildings.

I returned Sunday morning for a couple hours. Angie took the morning to catch up on our much neglected house and give it some "love" with a good dusting.

I located all 3 surviving siblings pretty quick upon arrival.  Two had flown in together onto the same ledge.  From what I could tell, it was the young male "Euro" and his little sister "Olympia".  Not easy to ID them from such heights but I did get a shot of the boy on the ledge with his green leg band and shortly after I caught another young Falcon in flight with a red leg band which meant that was "Windward", leaving "Olympia" as the other who flew onto the ledge.

Here is Windward in flight, speeding past us, one hundred feet plus above.

Suddenly one of the adults came flying in. And circled the tower a couple times.

So high up, so hard to capture with the lens; but so fun to watch.

Cathy, another volunteer watcher was with me, and we were quite certain the adult was Jack.  Pretty cool to see "Father Falcon" show up on Father's Day for us.

Another circle of the tower and Jack got some feedback from his children.  People down on Bloor Street with us this early Sunday morning also took notice to the screeching high above.

And seconds later out came one of the young Falcons; which turned out to be his son Euro.

I'd like to think that maybe this was the beginning of some flight training being passed from father to son.  And Euro, already a great little flyer for such a young Falcon, was keeping up to his dad.

Circling Sunlife, losing sight on the east, watching them come out on the west.

Euro even passed Jack at one point which must've been a very proud moment for both of them.

Euro's flying abilities improve every visit.  Today I could clearly see he is learning how to use the wind to glide, to conserve his energy for when needed most and his landings are matching those of his parents.

The fledge watch is officially over now until next year.  The young can fly, so all we can do now is monitor them, do head counts and wish them well.

But I am not leaving them yet.  I will continue to make visits in the coming weeks and hope to have more blogs about this family of Falcons.