June 5th - 2012
Just received e-mail from Dennis in Windsor that “Twitter” is the first one to fledge. Awaiting news and further information. Stay tuned…….
Photos by Jerry Peliter
June 6th - 2012
Two days til banding! It definitely appears that four growing eyasses are growing quickly!!
Vicki Kadow and Roger Johnson
Baylie lives in the condos next to the nest building and has been helping CPF from almost the beginning. She sent along these photos, which not only are cute/beautiful/stunning but useful to show we are very close to a fledge. Young Euro the male has but a few tufts of down on his head. He will be ready to fly very soon if not tomorrow. As per Kathys report about O’Connor’s clearing airspace, she is getting ready for her young to fly. She did the same thing at the Osler nest where she was resident female last season. A mother knows.
We will have our team in place tomorrow to help if needed. We know O’Connor will give chase to us so Ive warned fledge watchers/would be rescuers that its WRAP and RUN. Wrap up the fledgling and get to cover,out of O’Connor’s sight.
Oh my gosh, a feeding frenzy at King St. this evening. I guess the youngest, thought it best to avoid the rush and wait a bit. It’s hard to see what for dinner.
When I was out on lunch today to check on the family, O’Connor was perched on top of the building directly above the nest ledge. Suddenly she launched herself into the air heading down towards the Kingsway and went in to stooped dive…she came down so low and my eye followed her to a two story complex where she heading straight for a seagull. She drove the bird right into traffic and she was level with an SUV…I am still not sure if the SUV clipped her or she turned sideways to avoid being hit. But I can tell you that my heart skipped a beat and I honestly thought she was a goner.
She then picked up a few feet of altitude - seemingly unfazed about the fact that she was almost killed and proceeded to swoop down on pigeons that were perched on the hydro wires down by the car lot and then landed on top of a short hydro pole??!!
O’Connor is infamous for doing things like this and as Mark Nash has explained to me at her previous site the slower traffic made it a much safer area so she was able to indulge in this kind of reckless behavior. However at this site, the nest ledge faces 4 lanes of fast moving, extremely busy traffic. I am quite concerned now that she will injure herself during the fledge period if as I”m told her behavior will become even more aggressive.
I’m thinking we’ll need to be keeping an eye out for her safety just as much as the juveniles over the next few weeks.
Image from the web cam this afternoon. I guess they are all lined up waiting for a food drop. Lots of white remains on three of the little ones. The juvie at the far end of the image is difficult to determine how much down remains. We are scheduled to start the fledge watch this week, with the oldest juvenile being 36 days old tomorrow. If the oldest is a female, then we have a couple days before they are ready. Lots of preening going on.
We spent over nine and half hours watching the whole family yesterday. We’v noticed that Freddie and Voltaire are hanging around closer to the nest site and also Voltaire came in with a food package and prepared it on the ledge with the four chicks watching. Was that a way of saying “o.k. kids this food has to be prepared before you can eat it and this is the way to do it”. Viper, General Broc, Twitter and Eddy were all very busy preening, flapping, resting and very vocal. Their feedings aren’t as close together as they were when they were just little babies. They were fed four times while we were there. Twice the food was just dropped off and they ate by themselves. One time Voltaire cleaned it in front of them and last time she flew in with the meal already prepared and fed them. When they are full they just walk away. We’re thinking because there is so much food flying around there’s no need to fight over it when the parents bring it in for them to eat. Eddy is losing his white down very fast and the other three are starting to look like their parents. It’s always fun to be there watching them. Nerve wrecking as well when they start to flap and they are close to the edge of the nest ledge. Kids, what can you do????
Banding day photos - May 23rd- 2012
Hot of the press, banding day photos!
Banding Day - May 24th - 2012
Sorry for the delay in posting this information. With so many bandings and photos to go through, posting it sort of got lost in the shuffle.
Here are the particulars:
Olympia-female , 21 days old, 785 grams, black/black S/05, yellow tape
Regatta-female, 23 days old, 825 grams, black/black S/07, blue tape
Windward-female, 23 days old, 775 grams, black/black S/12, red tape
Euro-male, 23 days old, 570 grams, black/black R/40, green tape
