The Canadian Peregrine Foundation - Project Release - Leeds County

Saturday July 19, 2003
Linda Woods reports: 09:15 - 5:30p.m. Arrived on site just in time. A long drive from Toronto but well worth it! A fabulous set-up and great people attending to the release of the hack birds. Incredible site lines from the different "camps" and if one becomes too hot in the sun, just jump in the lake for a refreshing dip. Bird # 1 to leave to box minutes after releasing the bars, was Leader and minutes after Albertus. Both had strong flights and what a view from "camp A" seeing the first flights at eye level. Both immatures did not appear to have any difficulty keeping airborne. Foster remained at the box and had not fledged at the time we were heading back to Toronto. She did keep us entertained with her antics of nestling between the rocks and playing with a piece of bark she had found while lounging on the upper deck of the hack box. We had a great day, and I would like to Thank Garnett for all the cookies and the wonderful people that have contributed to this terrific hack release watch site. Photos

Saturday July 12, 2003
Mark Nash reports: It was another great day at the Charleston Lake hack site. Today's scheduled events were to include some identifying marking of the peregrine chicks before they are released. During the falcon watches, it's always hard to correctly identify all the juveniles when they are released, to help us identify each chick after they have been released from the hack box - each of the birds got several of their tail feathers coloured blonde..

Photos in the Leeds County photo gallery document the end result. (Click here for photos.) Each bird was returned from the hack no worse for wear, but with a little added colour.

Foster had 4 of her middle tail feathers bleached, Leeder has 4 of his left tail feathers bleached, and Albertus had 4 of his right tail feathers bleached. A very safe practice of colouring several of the birds tail feathers.

Tuesday June 24, 2003
Maya Basadeo reports: Chick Arrival 4 chicks for hack release at Charleston Lake arrived via Air Canada at Pearson Int'l Airport this afternoon. The plane touched ground at 17:40 and with the help of almost the entire shift at Air Canada Cargo the chicks were delivered to me by 18:15. My initial inspection of the chicks revealed them to be in good shape after their long trek from Alberta. In between their hisses at us for looking at them, I managed to spray some cool water in each of their mouths to help hydrate them. My sincere thanks to all the guys at Air Canada Cargo - at the desk, in the warehouse and at the on-ramp, for acting so quickly and delivering our baby peregrines to us safe and sound. After more help from ACC staff loading the crate in my car, I was off to our education centre with the precious cargo. The chicks were taken indoors for an overnight before the trip to Brockville on Wednesday, and Tracy and I fed them some quail cut into small pieces. We used forceps to place the food in their mouths and they had no problem in knowing what to do with the food. It reminded me of watching people at a pie eating contest - they just opened their mouths, grabbed and swallowed the quail all in the blink of an eye. I gave them some more water and then we put them to bed. In order to avoid handling the chicks unnecessarily, we left them inside the special box they were shipped in from Alberta and will be transporting them in the same box to the banding location and finally hack box.

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