Bill was at the Lift Bridge from about 1:30pm to 5:00pm. Everything seems to be progressing nicely. There isn’t much to report today so we’re just attaching a couple of photos.
The little ones are mobile now and can be seen from Street level. The Rectory on Church Street is a good sight line.
The weather this past week has kept the young ones out of sight of the camera. They have been huddled under the camera, tucked into the recess of the ledge.
Now that the Sheraton 4 are banded, now all we have to do is wait until they are ready to fly.
Today, the four were busy preening and preening, picking off the downy white fluff.
I estimate that a watch for juvenile first flights, should begin sometime around June 6th.
Males generally take first flight between 36 - 40 days of age.
Females take first flight at 38 - 42 days of age. The older the better
Went down to the site today to check on the family after last night’s storm. The young female juvie was laying on her belly in the nestbox looking quite put out by something and no sign of the other other two. So I went outside with the binoculars to check and see if they were tucked in under the webcam but of course you can’t see that from the street. Mom and dad were both present though, mom on the webcam and dad was gliding on the wind in front of the ledge area.
Back inside I went, in time to see dad land on the nestbox ledge. This got little missy up off her belly and she immediately started grabbing at dad’s talons looking for food no doubt, which explained her surly mood.
She then stomped off down the ledge after making him uncomfortable enough to leave the ledge so I ran back outside in time to see her standing under the cam telling mom what she thought of them both lazing around when there was food to be caught! This woke both her brothers up and I was able to see all 3 heads from my vantage point across the street.
When I left mom and dad were out flying around no doubt trying to convince the young lady that were indeed not slacking off and were actively looking for a snack for her 
When I observed no 2nd Adult present @ Yellow Pages, I decided to check Bell, and sure enough there were 2 Adults present on the East Side of the Building sheltering from the fairly strong Wind. That Wind plus the positioning of the Birds prevented me from checking the leg Bands of the Birds especially the Male which is suspected of attending the Females @ both Sites (Bell & Yellow Pages). Anyway this suspicion will not be put away until an observer is present at each site at the same time.
Checked in at Yellow Pages, for about a half an Hour or so, and saw pretty well what I expected. With the Cool weather and fairly high wind speed, I observed no action around the Nest Ledge, as the Adult would be tight to it. The one thing I also noticed was no 2nd Adult present (Figured I would check Bell before I came Home- See Report @ Bell Page) Anyway, no prescence seen in the Half an Hour or so I was on site.
Stopped by for an hour so this AM, and immediately saw a change in behaviour from the last time I was here. Today, I only saw the Male visible on the top of the East Sign. I checked the Nest Box but did not see anything at first, but then the female appeared, and she was moving around in the Box very carefully, just like she was (Pardon the Pun) walking on Eggshells. Actually in the past we have observed on Camera that the Adults are actually not all that gentle with the Eggs, ( With the decrease in the amount of DDT in the Enviroment) but are very careful if there are Young present. She sat up and preened and then I observed her sort of bend forward looking very intently at something, then her beak moved as if she was vocalizing, and then I observed her doing a motion that suggested she was tucking and positioning something under her. Of course when I took a look through the Peephole she was fully down on the nest, but was facing away from me, so I could not confirm anything. The Male stayed outside the Nest during the entire time I was there. Stayed tuned however, I will check back again tomorrow.
It was a pretty uneventful Week in North York with the exception of the Birds showing some Intrest in the Old Nest Building, in fact on Monday the Female was actually on the Old Nest Ledge. Other than that, one or the other of the Birds were seen in the vicinity of Mel Lastman Square every Day up until Thursday.
With a huge thank-you to Linda from the CPF for her determination in gathering logistics at the Mt. Sinai Hospital nest site, and with the support of the hospital’s operations management team, we was both alerted to the new happenings going on with Mt. Sinai’s newest residents. We able to attend the roof area to gather more detailed logistics on the peregrines activity. During the site visit, I was able to lower our wireless camera down form the roof area to the lower ledges below in an effort to get a peek into the ledges where all of the peregrine activity has been going on.
While the images being displayed on the tiny hand held wireless monitor were far from the typical National Geographic network TV stuff, (actually much like being in a small plane that has just lost its lift, and in the middle of a “stall and spin while being attacked by a F-18 jet fighter”!!! We were able to confirm that there is at least two, if not three eggs on the ledge that is currently being incubated by the attending adults.
The visit was far from an uneventful routine type of visit, as I must say that this was one of the very few occasions over the last 14 years that I actually felt concerned for my safety while working with peregrines. The attending adult female was far from happy with our visit to “HER BUILDING”. Needless to say, I was very eager to leave the roof top to seek refuge and the safety offered to me from behind closed doors. Despite my soiled underwear, drenched with sweat, and the adrenaline eating experience - (that only briefly describes the experience), I was able to get a partial band number and have a pretty good ideal of who the adult female is. The adult female dawns a Black over Red coloured band number and we suspect that she is one of two females that is well know to us. Without being able to positively confirm her identity, (but we are working on it), we believe it is either Wind or Ranger.
Both of these birds have very interesting histories. Wind was the female that was the producing female at the Toronto Sheraton Hotel for many years, and Ranger was the nesting female that spend many years at our uptown nest site on the Canadian Tire building at Yonge & Eglinton with her mate Hunter. Ranger also attempted to hatch several clutches of eggs over a two year period at Bloor & Ave. Rd on the Four Season Hotel. All three of these nest locations are documented on the CPF web site.
The adult male currently with this female at Mt. Sinai dawns a Black over Green coloured leg band, but he never gave us an opportunity to get a detailed look at the band numbers. Stay tuned, there is more to come………….
Paul Reynolds Reports:
Good morning Bill & Sue, I arrived at the bridge this morning at 9:30 to go fishing. I sat drinking my coffee watching for the birds. Cirrus made two attempts on pigeons missing each time. Then at 9:45 Sir came back in from Burlington with a blackbird and settled on the picnic table and proceeded to consume it. Cirrus did a couple of fly by’s. While watching Sir a couple of feathers floated down in front of me, and looking up Cirrus had caught a pigeon above me then took it to the buttress under the Skyway Bridge. She sat on it for a while and then flew over to the Hamilton Tower where it was stored for later. I then left to go down the pier. Sir had finished his meal and was now on the Hamilton hydro tower.
Paul.
Bill and I arrived at the Lift Bridge around 1:00 pm. As Paul reported above, they must have had a good morning of hunting because there seemed to be caches everywhere. As the day wore on, there were several feedings, but all the prey was taken from their storage locations. We didn’t really see any hunting today but as Paul reported, they had been at is early. As another storm approached from the North West, we headed for home around 7:00 pm, happy that the little ones had been well fed today.
