!!! All of the boys and girls are doing great!
June 19, 2012 - Toronto - Don Mills
Mark Nash Reports:
June 19th - 2012
It would seem that for the next few days during this heat wave and the oppressive humidity that our two best friends will continue to our cars air conditioning and a steady supply of Advil - (pretty typical for most of us at this time of year anyway) 
Despite the heat wave and humidity reaching 36 plus degrees C - (over 95 degrees F for us old imperial folks), with the combined help of the many supporters, local volunteers, the great Harlequin staff and the CPF fledge watch team, we had a pretty good idea on the whereabouts of the young fledglings positions throughout the entire day and evening. They didn’t escape our view for very long! Ha Ha, we’re good!!!
Most notability today given that so much has been happening with the “kids”,,, they have learned - (at least in part) what shade is all about and have hiding out in some shady spots to get out of the blistering sun. Like most all young children (and some adults I have met), they have limited attention spans and even hiding out in the shade to cool off has been short lived.
Now that all of the fledglings are actually flighted, they have been back together again off and on all day. Several times Quest came in with food (mostly to the nest building roof top) and we watched all of the fledglings come together and had mom feed them beak to beak. Quite a tender family moment for sure!! * See photos
While Amora is still not as confident as her two other siblings in their flight, by the end of the day she was taking some longer flights from roof top to roof top between 220 and 225 roofs.
Mira and Blaze on the other hand are rocking!! Actually pretty scary given that they are now building up allot of speed (and still 50% of their landings are terrible)!! Learn by experience!
This is typically the time that they end up sometimes crashing into stuff (very hard) as they are unable to judge distances and don’t understand their speed and can’t operate the “air-brakes” proficiently enough to stop them in time. Lets hope that they settle down. This is similar to the 16 year kid, one that has just got their drivers licence and the keys to the parents car for the first time,, BUT the car is a Porch!
On three occasions today when the fledglings were hiding out in the shade and couldn’t be seen, Quest was back into the nest box almost appearing to be pinning for babies again. While she didn’t actually lay down, she just stood upright gazing out into the airspace.
(Maybe she was actually thinking and wondering when all this stress is going to be over and have a quiet time house - back to herself again)?
All of the birds were noticeably hot and panted all day trying to cool off and get oxygen. I really felt sorry for them as both adults really struggled for the most of he day to hold their altitude in this bad air.
Late in the afternoon and early evening, it got a little cooler (but don’t kid yourself, not by much), but enough to given the birds some decent air and less direct sun to do some flying around. Still bad landings, and allot of shortness of breath, all three fledglings were airborne playing some short “catch me if you can games”, and “tag your it”. Lots of recharging in between flights.
By the end of the day, all of the fledglings were back on the nest building in various places, but all in view.
Given by what I have seen today and their activities and ability to hold their altitudes and able return back to the nest ledge itself (and all of the upper roof elevations), we can conclude our full time dawn to dusk fledge watch.
We will remain watching with daily spot checks but must depend on you to carry on with periodic checks to ensure that they are not getting in trouble. They can still run into challenges as they investigate their new world and can still get trapped behind glass balconies and run into windows that may bring them to the ground.
We must also remember that despite the fact that the juveniles are now flighted, they are solely dependant on the adult parents for food, support and protection for the next 30 to 60 days until they are trained to hunt, shown what to hunt, then able to successfully hunt, and that they will still be returning to the nest box / ledge and the nest building and roof top for security and their parents protection. This is still their home, and at this point the only one that they know!
We are counting on your support (as are the birds) for your support to further watch out for them.
We are, and remain on our mobile cell phones on a 24/7 call and not too far away.
Photos to come.
Stay tuned…………………………
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