!!! Last to fledge - Chester is off!!
June 27, 2011 - Toronto - Canada Square Building - Yonge and Eglinton
CPF Postmaster Reports:
Canada Square report Monday June 27th 2011
Bruce was on the beat early again today and after a reasonably uneventful morning where the two fledged juveniles flew distances *there and back* he was brought to his feet, literally, in a hurry at 1:00 p.m.
Young Chester flew today. Bruce happened to look up at 1:00 p.m. to see two birds in the air, one smaller than the other and thought *mom and juvenile*. They flew south over the cinema building and car park area and the larger one came back. Bruce checked to *make sure it was the mom* and was very surprised to discover it was a juvenile. Then the question became *who was the smaller peregrine?*
Bruce set out to check the identity. He checked the ledge from the ground and did not see Chester so he went up to the ledge and looked out only to find no bird on the ledge!!! He did all of the parking lots and areas he could get onto, without seeing the little chap.
Yep Chester had flown. I had a call a little after 1:00 p.m. to say that he had gone. I met Bruce and he set off on a search for Chester. At that point there was no sign of him and we could not see the adults anywhere. Bruce did another thorough search at 2.00 p.m. and found a youngster on the SE corner ledge of Canada Square. We did not see three juveniles between us, at the same time, any time after that.
On Bruce’s many walkabouts he sometimes saw one or both adults sitting on the Condo building, or flying over or near the Canada Square building. Later on when we saw two turkey vultures we had hoped they would bring out the adults from somewhere. However, they were quite high so perhaps not considered a threat and the adults stayed hidden from us.
For a while we had two juveniles on the antenna on top of Canada Square and as I had the scope up we could see their beautiful colours so well. We also determined for sure that who we had were Luke and Buzz. At one point when they were together we thought the one looked smaller than the other and we hoped it was Chester. They each flew off at different times from the antenna.
I returned for the second time after a trip home to find one adult and one juvenile on the ledge north of the nest. Maggie, one of our daily visitors, noticed that the female, who had brought in the food, was actually feeding the juvenile. This was the first time we had seen that! It was normal for us to see her feeding them on the nest ledge but not once they had left.
At one point we had four peregrines in the same area but no Chester. There were two juveniles on the Canada Square nest ledge and the two adults on the railing, one floor below. The female even went onto that lower balcony floor for a few minutes. The adults then flew off. Both juveniles did more flying today and one of them took off from the ledge, flew over Yonge and Eglinton, slightly north-ish and may have been heading for Baffin Island before the female flew in and turned him to fly south over the Bell building, across Eglinton where she brought him down on a white building with a number of chimney-like things on top. The juvenile hit one of those and fluttered from view. The female appeared unconcerned and continued flying back our way. A few minutes later we spotted him on the side of that building looking towards us. Later on he flew back. It was a lengthy flight, over Canada Square, over the black building just south of that and then up Duplex Ave to the apartment building at 411 where he landed on the stairwell roof. After a ten minute break he flew again and circled over the vacant TTC lot and then onto the smaller of the antennae on the Canada Square building. He really is flying well. After five minutes he flew north up Yonge street and out of sight. Shortly thereafter the second juvenile also flew up Yonge street.
We saw the female fly around the Canada Square building and just saw her land on the roof on the east side.
Later on the male flew in to the ledge on the north side of Canada Square with a food package! He was very surprised that no-one flapped and rushed him for it! He even called a number of times without any response. So he picked up the food and flew to the antenna on the TVO building where he made a meal of it.
Eventually the female flew north up Yonge and a while later the male did the same. Bruce made his last round of the area and was unable to find where Chester was bedded down for the night. So we left.
Lyn