!!! First Fledge - We have lift off!! AM report.
June 17, 2009 - Burlington - Lift Bridge
Mark Nash Reports:
On site very early this morning and set up house expecting a busy morning before the rain. Both parents were very active trying to coax the three hatchlings from the nest box. At 8am, and without any warning, the first juvenile “Truss” took her first flight. In seconds, both parents appeared out of thin air and escorted Truss positioned on each side of her almost touching wings as she struggled in her flight with the head wind trying to reach the roof top of the south tower. At one point it seemed that both of the parents inside wings touched Truss’s wings on either side as they escorted her in flight. Holding her altitude, Truss tried to make the upper roof ledge of the south tower, but it was not to be, as she came short by about a foot and slid down the upper south tower face (bay side) and ended up doing a face plant on the top of the cable arm. Her two sisters looked on in amazement. Truss quickly recovered to her feet with a very bewildered look and clung on to the piece of metal extending out from the top of the cable arm. For the next two hours, she hold on tightly in the strong wind guests that followed.
Both parents circled more than a dozen times, briefly landing on the same cable arm where Truss had landed. At approx. 8:30 am, mom headed off to the Skyway bridge out of sight only to return moments later with a fresh kill. She landed on one of the of cable collectors (nicked named the pic-nic tables) and prepared the food. She then flew to the nest box and kited in front of the two remaining hatchlings trying to coax them out of the nest box. The adult female tried on several occasions with various “fly-bys” but was unable to convince her other two daughters to take their first flights. Mom then flew over the south tower and teased Truss to get back into the air, but once again had no luck convincing Truss to try a second flight.
By 9:45 am , both parents were alarm calling and stooping and diving at something down low in the north tower base at the same level where the lift bridge meets the tower. For the next two hours, we watched both parents, (particularly mom) stoop, hover, and complete many fly-bys through this lower section of the tower. After spending more than two hours of scanning the spans of the tower, none of us have been able to see anything. Stay tuned, more to come…….