Gwenis just had her first flight! Very exciting. She got good height, circled over the parking lots, under the bridge and settled on a landing in a tree next to the parking lot. Beautiful flight!
Thank You Marilyn for this wonderful email.
Thank You to Marliese and Marilyn
Hercules can fly like the wind….finally….
After three days of a very comfortable life walking about the lower concrete levels, being well fed and trying a few scary low flights ending in grass walkabouts, Hercules took to the skies at 4:30 this afternoon. We had been lulled into ignoring his sleeping form when he suddenly took off and landed on the roof of the red brick building. That lasted for about 5 minutes when he took off heading for the nest. He almost made it, but aborted at the last minute having miscalculated , swooped around in a big circle under the bridge and gracefully landed on a ledge half way up the west wall. Whew…cheers of relief from all proud parents on the ground.
The aerial parents promptly rewarded him by dropping a bird on the ledge and feeding him. This was a surprise since this morning, she delivered a bird with all its feathers to the low level and watched for half an hour as he made his first attempt to deal with feathers. He actually managed to rip the thing apart and get some food but she finally came down, ripped off the big feathers in front of him and fed him, another teachable moment. Last seen, he was hunkered down in the rain on the middle west wall.
The two birds in the nest, got very little food today, but a lot of fly byes from both parents. There was hectic wing flapping all day giving us some scary moments. The best bet from all of us is that they will fly tomorrow, maybe both of them, judging both by the birds and the parents behaviour. Tecumseh has very little down left, only a bit on his rump and is as active as Gwennis.
Keep your fingers crossed for a calm night.
Calendar; we now have a weatherproof calendar with a dry write pen so we can write and wipe off additions. (we need a rainproof grease pencil). Please fill in your sat and sunday availability as we have nothing confirmed yet. It is on the back of the week one.
Keep watching the skies!
Today was a busy day with the morning starting out looking for little Big Frank. The camera view in the early hours showed all four birds but by 6:30am, only the three girls were visible. When I arrived on the site I immediately began a walk about and looked for little Big Frank all throughout Aberfoyle, Bloor, Islington and the south residential neighborhood. After checking any and all spots I decided to sit down on Eagle Road and let the adults tell me what I needed to know. Kathy came out and helped out several times throughout the morning but for all our efforts, we still only had three. By the lunch hour, Baylie came out and we had food go into the ledge. It was then that we were able to get a first clear head count on the young and all four were up there!! It would seem that little Big Frank found all of the camera blind spots and hid within them all morning long! The afternoon was much more relaxed now that we were sure we had four. We were joined later by Rob after which an Osprey decided to do a fly through and met with much resistance from O’Connor. It beat a hasty retreat and the Osprey won’t be back! As I left at the end of the day, all four kids were tucked up in the nest tray napping and dreaming about how they are going to get us going again tomorrow!!
All photos taken by Baylie and shared with our thanks.
On June 4th two lovely girls were banded at the 18 King Street East nest site in front of a huge crowd of tenants and building management staff. This site is such a treat to band and has been continuously part of the recovery and monitoring efforts for peregrines in southern Ontario since 1996. What makes this an even more outstanding feat is that the resident adults, Erin from Wisconsin and Windwhistler from Etobicoke Sun Life, both turned 15 years old this season making them the oldest peregrine falcons on record in Ontario that are still breeding. With the room ready and the crowd anxious to meet the new kids, our fearless window washing team from Solar Window Washing and CPF staff member Kathy Smith ascended the 19 stories to the nest ledge for the extraction. The chicks were sent to the rooftop and met by Mark Heaton from the Aurora District OMNR and brought down to the suite for banding. Each chick was weighed, sexed, named and banded and the 42nd and 43rdchick produced by Windwhistler are;
Cosmina 25 day old female 855 grams Y/64 Blue tape
Anastasia 23 day old female 855 grams Y/65 Red tape
The room, the crowd and the access were all graciously provided by Dundee Property Management Group who host this historic and record setting pair at 18 King Street East. The OMNR’s Mark Heaton not only banded these two gorgeous girls today but was also a part of the rescue and release of Windwhistler in 1998 at Etobicoke Sun Life and we were grateful for his help to band today. Were it not for the CPF Fledge Watch team of 1998, Windwhistler wouldn’t be with us today. He has not only smashed longevity records in the province for a breeding male but also has created a legacy that is outstanding. Not including 2013, this male has produced 41 offspring, has 43 grand children and 4 great grandchildren making him the most prolific male in Ontario. His and Erin’s contribution to the recovery of his species is awe inspiring. We also need to thank the Fledge Watch volunteers ready to help Cosmina and Anastasia today for it is these folks that will help this legend continue. Thanks to Linda, Paul, Zoe, Marion, Bruce, Mark, Harry and a host of others that have made this all such a success. Congratulations 18 King Street East for yet another awesome banding event!!
I arrived at the site early in the morning as the web camera has revealed that very little down remains on these four chicks. Yesterday’s site check to ascertain how ready they are led us to believe that the first fledge would most likely happen on Wednesday or beyond. While Big Frank was flapping up a storm in the rain yesterday, his wing exercises were quite uncoordinated as well as his oldest sister, Lizzy, who was also somewhat active. It didn’t take long before the four chicks were sound asleep yesterday and they remained house bound as the rains got heavier. Today started off much the same with little activity visible on the ledge except for the occasional stretch, flap and food fight. As the rains continued through the morning, the foursome retired to the nest tray in one big pile on. It wasn’t until the afternoon that things started to warm up and dry off a bit which brought the chicks out of hiding. There was lots of wing flapping, exercising, stretching and bouncing about but nothing that indicated they were ready for take-off. I think that tomorrow will be much more exciting as this foursome gets ready for flight.
Today we started the MEC Fledge Watch with a short shift on the site to check on the progress that Catherine and Ashley are making towards first flights. When I arrived the rain was sprinkling down and kept the two girls in the nest box out of sight. The parents, Cass and Sante, were not on site and I presumed were out hunting. A brave little Catherine made a brief foray out of the box to the nest ledge where she sat oh so proud of herself. But as soon as Mr. Rain touched Mr. Feathers she was back into the confines of the box like a shot. Just after 11:00am, Sante came flying in with a screaming Cass on his tail. I think that she assumed he had food and she was looking to take it off of him. He landed on the platform of the nest box and Cass flew right in and landed on top of him. Seeing as he had no food with him, she diverted her path and flew over to MEC 3 on the southwest corner. Sante briefly entered the nest box and checked on the girls before flying over to MEC 3 and tucked in under the Desjardins symbol on the west side. Cass has a hard time squeezing herself in there and so Sante will often use this spot as his hidey hole. Cass then flew over to the nest box and checked on the girls herself, entering the box briefly for a little chat and then she was back over to MEC 3 for a roost on the S in Desjardins, one of her favourite letters. At 1pm I met up with Shannon and Marg to do some Fledge Watch training and go over the protocol for rescues. We are so pleased to have you ladies on board as well as Katherine and it will be an enormous help to the watchers who are the ”dawn to duskers”. Neither of the two girls have made the all important leap to the next ledge or tried to fly up to the top of the box. That will come as their confidence builds but they are edging out for sure!!
If anyone would like to help support Catherine and Ashley, our two beautiful girls at MEC, as they take their first precarious flights, please send us an email at raptor4@peregrine-foundation.ca .
On June 3rd, we gathered together to band the offspring of Chessie and Hurricane at the William Osler Hospital and celebrate this site’s first ever foursome! We met up with Ross Bartlett from Environmental Services with the hospital and headed up to the 11th floor mechanical room for set up. We were joined by several of the staff from the hospital including Lyndsay Carter from Corporate Communications who was there to gather the pertinent details for the naming contest for these four chicks.
This site is one of the easiest extractions to do as the nest tray is right behind the “H” sign on the hospital and there is an access hatch right there. We waited for Hurricane to finish a feeding and then once gone, opened the hatch and removed the foursome for banding. Neither Hurricane nor Chessie knew what we had done and so 10 minutes later when Hurricane came back to check on the kids, they were gone. The camera that is on the nest bowl ( that we are working to get to the internet thanks to Ross and Lyndsay ) showed a very perplexed Hurricane looking for his offspring. He checked every corner, every edge, every stone of that tray and just could not for the life of him figure out where they went. I’m sure he figured he be in big trouble as it was his turn to babysit and lost the kids inside of 10 minutes. He took off, presumably to tell Chessie what had happened and all was quiet for the next 15 minutes.
The chicks were a gorgeous group with good feisty attitudes. Each was banded and weighed but not named as of yet until the William Osler Hospital name the chick contest is concluded. Here are the particulars and we will announce names as soon as we have them.
Chick 1 640 gram male 22 days old R/55 Blue tape
Chick 2 620 gram male 22 days old W/62 Yellow tape
Chick 3 840 gram female 23 days old Y/62 Red tape
Chick 4 840 gram female 23 days old Y/63 White tape
By the time that the banding was almost complete, Chessie had returned and was now looking for the kids. She could hear them occasionally chatter on the other side of the wall in the mechanical room and so she attempted to peek through the crack between the door and the wall and find them. After she had taken off, we quickly returned the fab four to the nest tray and with the door now shut, Hurricane returned with a “Where have you been!!” look on his face. He went out and told Chessie that he found them and all settled down. Congratulations to the William Osler Hospital and I look forward to this year’s Fledge Watch!! We would like to thank our gracious nest site hosts the William Osler Hospital, Lyndsay Carter and their staff, with special regards to Ross. Your supp;ort has been amazing. We would also like to thank Paladin Security staff as they have been another excellent part of the support team for the nesting pair and Mark Heaton of the OMNR and his collegues from the Economy department for making the banding of the pair today possible.
June 11th - 2013
While we haven’t received any updates of the young hatchlings since their banding, we have received some photos that Marg was able to get after one of her visits to Holcim on June 11th.
Marg writes:
I went by Holcim today and caught two of the boys living on the edge… Looks like things are heating up!
Marg Nelson
After taking some trial flights up Huron Church early Sunday morning, Mike and Paul had to rescue him as he decided to land on the road, and narrowly missed being road kill. Somewhat chastened, he spent the rest of the day on the lowest concrete level and parading around the grass enclosure, with lots of hopping but very ineffective flying attempts. He likes to escape under the fence, so Paul got inventive and came up with a ’stepladder’ , ie. a big branch leaning against the fence. He quickly learned to use that to climb to the top of the fence, but didn’t like to be that high, and immediately flew down again, preferring grass. Not much else happened the rest of the day and we all relaxed. Just before I got there tonight, Paul all alone, really had to scramble as Hercules took off from the lowest concrete soared over the wires and a few trees, came down in the park, took off again, landed on a small porch and finally came back to the grass enclosure under the bridge , south of university. He had not been fed all day. Voltaire made several passes carrying food to try to entice him to fly, no luck. She finally gave up, flew down to land on the ground left food and took off. For the first time I think, he ate on his own for at least 15 minutes. She came down landed again , picked up the remainder to try to entice him to follow. No luck. It was getting dark and windy. She came back again, landed in front of him, hopped several times and then took off low …..a perfect follow me, this is how you fly lesson, no luck. After another half hour of walking, we hauled out the stepladder again, which he now knows how to use, to get to the top of the fence ; he flew again, but he gives up when he sees a fence and down he goes. Guided walks needed across the street and more step ladder. We finally were able to see him safely on top of the fence, north side of the concrete, hopefully asleep in the dark at 9:30. The only fly in the ointment was a ‘helpful’??? lady in a car who had seen us usher him safely across the street and informed us, not to worry, she had called the humane society. I thanked her but said we had everything under control and that we had been the babysitters all day and the bird was fine. Paul and I hung around for another half an hour, just in case , the not needed cavalry arrived but we doubted that anyone would show up in the dark anyway so finally went home at 9:30.
That’s all folks for today folks.