Over the weekend we were able to choose the perfect foster site for the three MEC hatchlings. With the assistance from the wonderful folks at the William Osler Health Care Centre, we were able to confirm that status of the resident peregrines. Reconfirming that the resident female was still incubating her eggs, and knowing that they beyond the hatch day and with no hope of a hatch, this stage was set for the perfect fostering condition as this is exactly the situation that was needed. The ideal foster nest site!
With the hatchlings much stronger and healthier, it was time to introduce them to their new foster parents. The three hatchlings departed the CPF raptor centre late this afternoon and arrived at the William Osler Hospital safe and sound. We were greeted by the hospital security and maintenance personal and awaited Mark’s arrival from MNR. We proceeded to the upper floors to the access hatch to the nest ledge. After re-confirming for the last time that the resident female was still incubating the eggs and that the resident male was still in attendance, the hatch door was carefully opened and the 3 remaining un-hatched eggs were removed and replaced with the three young peregrines. Despite both of the resident peregrines objection to this intrusion, the procedure went without a hitch and the access door was closed and secured.
For the next ten plus minutes we all waited and watched in anticipation that the resident adult female would accept her new foster family. She was joined by her mate and we watched both of the resident adults stare in absolute bewilderment. Seconds later, the hatchlings started to vocalize. Seconds later, both of the adults started to vocalize back to the three young peregrine hatchlings. Moments in to this scream-feast, , one of the chicks walked off out of our view down the ledge. Fearing that worst that one of the hatchlings may be on its way too close to the edge of the ledge, we preceded to ground level and to the outside the building and positioned ourselves directly under the ledge. The vocalizing from all of the peregrines was deafening even eight stories down.
What we witnessed from this vantage point was nothing shy of spectacular and amazing. Both of the resident adult peregrines were involved in this scream feast with the hatchlings, all while touching beaks together. The adult male was the most confused and made a dozen touch-and -go flights back and forth from the nest ledge to the hydro towers to the east, than back to the nest building and nest ledge. Throughout this entire time frame, - (which lasted close to a half an hour), the adult resident male also went after and chased of several gulls.
By 5:55 pm, the male finally bought in a small food package, and the adult female was quick to snatch it from him and preceded to feed her newly acquired family. For the next three hours while we watched on, the male brought in three other food packages to the ledge. Each time the adult female snatched the food packages from him and proceeded to feed the hatchlings. By the end of the day as we lost our daylight, all three hatchlings had been few several times and had huge full bulging full crops. Both adults continued to be very vocal right up to when darkness fell, and all fell silent.
By the time 9 pm rolled around and the darkness set in, the adult female had herded all three of the hatchlings back down the ledge into the nest tray behind the hospital sign where they all disappeared from our view. It couldn’t have worked out better!! Tracy joined me around 5 pm and stayed until darkness. During our visit, both of the resident adults were ID’ed and their band numbers were recorded and photographed. The resident adult male is non other than Hurricane, who was produced at the Toronto Sheraton hotel nest site in 2004, dawning a solid black band 5 over X. Hurricane has been the resident adult here at the William Osler Hospital nest site since 2006 when he arrived as a first year juvenile in full brown plumage.
The resident adult female dawns a Black M over Green 87 band. We hope to have some history on her very soon. Stay tuned… More to come!
We have identified the new resident adult female that is now on territiry with the current adult male.
She dawns a Black M over a Green 83 band number. This female was named Tessie, andwas hatched on April 22nd in 2007 from Cleveland Ohio USA, from the Cleveland Clinic nest site. Tessie was one of three produced at this nest site with two other brothers named Crile - (banded Black H over Green 41), and Toby - (banded Black H over Green 42). Tessie is the daughter of Flash and Liberty.
The kids are elusive at times. Today I saw lunch come to the ledge via the camera. Still a ways from first flights for this lot. It’s very interesting to watch the little one, and the interaction with one of the older birds. Very cute.
Earlier today, the group of four seemed to be content to stay on the ledge. The boys of course showed a little interest beyond the edge but the activity was minimal. Later in the morning, Sandy-Links was flapping and running of the ledge. One bird even did the bat thing at the far reaches of the ledge in behind the Osler camera.
All was quiet until 4:20 pm when Jan witnessed the first fledge of 2009 for the Sheraton. Stormin took the first jump and disappeared into the sky. It is very easy to loose track of these birds against the tall structures surrounding the Sheraton Centre Hotel. Jan, myself and another CPF Volunteer began the search and two hours later, he is found on the north facing ledges of the Hilton Hotel ( midway up and across )
Good Spotting Jan and company! Food went into the ledge around 7p.m. ( photos attached ) Two of the birds including Sandy-Links who I think is on the right in the photo, chowed down stuffing themselves with the help of Rhea Mae. I think she wanted them to bed down for the night.
The third juvenile, who I believe is Osler, was snookered up against the the camera wall and not visible at this angle. One could see him through the Osler camera.
While I stood my ground near the Four Seasons Performing Arts Centre watching Stormin, the adult female is guarding the area and chasing off stray gulls that happen into the ”zone” I’m keeping my eyes skyward and looking over my shoulder. I’ve been chased once this year by a peregrine, that’s enough.
Despite the 13 degree temperature, the North East Wind at 14 knots, winter coats and gloves, it was a great evening for falcon watching.We arrived at the Lift Bridge around 5:30 pm to find Cirrus hunting from the roof of the Hamilton Tower.After several failed attempts, she took off over the trees towards Burlington.About 6:00 she returned with a large pigeon, landed on a picnic table and prepared the meal.About 6:10 she dropped it off for the chicks while she kept a close eye on them, flying back and forth to the nest box.It would appear that they wanted to be fed by Mom in light of the screaming coming from the box.Cirrus was having no part of it.Cirrus continued to keep an eye on them from an eye bolt on the Burlington Tower.At 6:40, Cirrus took off again and this time grabbed another pigeon from under the Skyway.Again, to the picnic table to prepare.This time she had her own dinner and at 7:00 took the remainder to the nest box and this time fed the chicks.AT 7:10 she took the remains to the walkway under the Skyway to store for future use.At 6:50, Sir appeared and did a fly by of the next box.I guess check to see if all was well and then disappeared again behind the Burlington Tower.Cirrus was amazing to watch tonight as she soared in the wind back and forth between the two towers.It appears that Cirrus is travelling a little further from home to do her hunting these days.I guess the resident pigeons have gotten too smart for her.When we left at 7:30, Cirrus was sitting on the cable arm of the Hamilton Tower and Sir never made another appearance.The chicks have very little white down today.At the rate they are changing, it won’t be long now.
Today has been even more exciting with all three of the hatchlings alert and very animated, all interacting with one another now. All three of the hatchlings are now very mobile compared to yesterday and responding VERY WELL to fluids and food. Eating us out of house and home is an understatement!
The young male Apollo is now very alert and aggressively demanding food, but with all of the attitude that we would expect to see. He is quite willing to steel food from his other two sisters without hesitation, and is quick to voice his opinion and lash out at me after each time the feedings are completed.
Katarina, the smaller female has dramatically increased in weight again and continues to improve in leaps and bounds. She has transformed from a quiet sickly lethargic looking hatchling and become a very alert, very vocal bully herself. Energy PLUS!!
Magarina is doing just fine, and has become even more aggressive!. While she takes food willingly, she is also quick to strike out and hiss at me after the feedings are finished.
Obviously a love hate relationship! This is exactly what we want to see in their overall attitude and behavior.
I can report with all confidence that the hatchlings are all but back to healthy condition, and should be ready to leave our care soon.
A brief update from Tracy from the CPF Raptor Centre and the three hatchlings. More than a noticeable improvement from all three of the hatchlings today, as they are of this evening three very different birds compared to what they looked and acted like on Friday afternoon when they arrived at the CPF Raptor Centre. The little male hatchling named Apollo - (Black 37 over Y - with Blue tape) is now standing upright and moving freely around in the nest tray and starting to respond very well to the fluids and food being offered. His weight has increased and he is looking very alert and animated, now starting to interact with his two other siblings.
His little sister Katarina - (Black 16 over X -with red tape ) who was suffering from the more severe dehydration and malnutrition is also now responding well to the food and fluids. She has gained almost 20 grams in weight and is now consuming food faster then I can feed her.
The largest female sibling Magarida - (Black 17 over X - with Yellow tape) has obviously been one of the problems, given her huge size, dominance and strength in comparison to the other two hatchlings, as she consistently bullies the other two siblings and steels all of the food, many times from right out of their mouths before they can swallow it. Neither of the other two hatchlings seem to have the strength or the awareness to prevent the older hatchling Magarida from taking all of their food.
While this behavior is quite typical of the largest or most dominant of the hatchlings in any given nest, this situation is magnified due to the much smaller and weakened condition of the other two siblings. The much larger Magarida has been getting most of what little food packages that the resident adult male father was able to bring in to the nest.
Without a second adult helping to provide food to the hatchlings, (and in this case, with the death of the resident adult female, who is capable of CARRYING much larger food packages), it has become quite obvious that the surviving resident adult male was not able to keep up the necessary food requirements to maintain the health of all three of his offspring. The hatchlings are being fed three to four times a day and have are now consuming several hundred grams of food between the three. As of this evening, they are all casting normal formed pellets and their mutes are all starting to look normal.
* We were a little worried as the Male & Amp; Adult Female was swapping places on the Center Office Tower. Did this mean that a Young Bird had gone down in the area through the night?
* By first light saw that there were 3 young on the ledge along with an Adult on the Camera.
* Around 0600 Hrs. saw one of the Young Males get some lift across the ledge ( About 1/3 of the ledge.)
* At around 0830 Hrs. 1st Male (Turned out to be Yellow) took off Flying to the South West over the Pizza Pizza and past the Alleyway. He then turned back and headed to the Center Building (Dad was at the SW Corner) realized he would not make and turned in towards the Nest Building. Much to my surprise, he headed around the front of the Nest Building avoiding it quite well, and headed out of sight between the Nest Building and the first Condo. After circling the complex and coming back to the Pizza Pizza I finally spotted him on the Low Rise Condos to the North of the Nest Building. He was at Roof Level running along the South Side.
*He spent around an Hour on the building running up and down, but the funniest thing that happened was at one point he hopped up on one of the Owls the Condo has on each corner for Pigeon Control. (See Bailey’s Report and Picture #1).
*After an hour, the Bird flew between the Nest Building and the Center Building climbing, but I could see as he headed back into the Building He didn’t have the height. Sure enough, he headed back to the South West. I walked East on Aberfoyle, I checked the Roof of the Bell Building. I didn’t see the Juvinile anywhere, but I did see an Adult appear to be stooping something South of the Lane off Eagle Road.
*After meeting up with Kathy, and finding out the Bird had only missed the Ledge on the Center Building by about 2 Storeys (About 2/3 the height of the Nest Building) she felt the Bird had come down on the top of the 2 Storey Stores on the South Side of Bloor. I headed over to the North Side of Bloor, and checked the Block, finding nothing. When I got to Eagle Rd., I heard a commotion coming up from the Houses South of the Lane (Crows, Blue Jays). When I got to about 5 houses south of the lane way, and looking into the yard I saw 2 Crows flying at something in a Deciduous Tree. Sure enough it was our little guy, quite outnumbered as he also had a couple of Sparrows & Blue Jays in the Fray as well. After obtaining permission from the very understanding Home Owner to access the Yard we were able to scare off the Crows, the bird was out of Danger, with the exception of the rather persistant Blue Jay ( See Baileys Picture # 2). We monitored the bird closely for several hours and then backed off and just spot checked it periodically. As it turned out he spent most of the Evening Sleeping, and was still there at Dusk.
*As for the other 2, it was a pretty uneventfull day, and it was pretty much the same as Yesterday. The only real highlight was around 1400 Hrs. the Female vocalized and flew out to the East. When she came back into view she was chasing a Great Egret, who first tried climbing, and when that did not work, went into a high speed Dive with Peregrine in close pursuit. Luckily the Egret got away but it was close call.
*We were relieved by Marion, Tracy & Amp; Amanda and I headed for home.
