June 27, 2013 - Scarborough - Yellow Pages
Mark Nash Reports:
June 27th - 2013
Despite another really uneventful day in the field on the fledge watch again today with regards to any the young peregrines doing anything spectacular, (or anything at all) for all that matter,, it was still a good day on the other side of the coin in that both hatchlings (one now fledged and tearing up the skies -(named Loki) and his sister - (named Neira) is still on the nest ledge, BOTH of them are still visible and very much alive!
The extreme heat and humidity has finally dissipated and although no one’s running around the block as yet, you can actually breath now without looking like you have just showered! Overcast all day, light breezes and NO SUN!!! Thank Goodness! The “easy-bake” over finally turned off!
Three days of intense observations from dawn to dusk has paid off and there appears to be a real pattern unfolding, now almost predictable, (at least at this stage of the young peregrines development). By 8:30pm each day, both parents have settled down and no longer very active. Linn brings the last food in for the day to the nest ledge and drops its off. Loki, returns to the nest ledge prior to this event and is already waiting with his sister on the nest ledge for the food to arrive!
By 8:45pm, quiet is an understatement, as both of the young peregrines are settled down for the night! It is quite obvious that Linn is drawing them (or at least Loki) back to the nest ledge each night with food at the same time each night and has tucked them in so to speak, just prior to darkness falling. Both adults have once again taken up their roosting positions after the final food drop and become very inactive indeed. The young have disappeared in behind the nest ledge lip and are not seen again for the balance of the evening. Its almost like Linn has set a “curfew” for the kids, - be home by 8:30pm or miss out on supper! Now that’s some experienced parenting!
I consulting with Marion who has historically been doing the Yellow Pages watch over the past years, she recants that this is exactly the same behaviour that she has documented for several years at the Yellow pages fledge watch! After reviewing her field notes from the previous years, I can confirm without any doubt that this is exactly the case! History has once again repeated itself at this nest site!
The highlight of the day, (or should I say the evening) was Ruben’s last hunt. Given the obvious lack of any pigeons in the immediate area, (it appears that the peregrines have cleaned out the neighborhood of local pigeon populations), Ruben is having to travel much further beyond the visible territory to find his choice of food. Just as the CAA had finished boosting my battery, (yes, sleep depravation is taking its toll as I left my car lights on all day and killed my battery), Ruben suddenly appeared from the south east chasing a pigeon almost over our heads and deliberately forced the pigeon into the side of the nest building windows about half way up the building.
The pigeon hit the office building window at an incredible speed (and with a very loud bang) and either killed itself on impact or knocked itself out cold on impact. It actually bounced off the window after its collision and Ruben caught it on the re-bound as it bounced of the window back into the air. Absolutely incredible! He caught it without missing a single wing beat!!!
Both Dave and I watched in amazement as the event unfolded!! Ruben never missed a wing beat, and grabbed the lifeless pigeon and simply carried on around the north side of the building with the lifeless pigeon in his clutches. While he did struggled to hold his altitude with the huge pigeon in his clutches, he was able to gain enough altitude and flew around to the west to the “kitchen”,, (atop of the Investors group building as we have nick-named it), where both adults have historically over the years taken their food to prepare it.
Unbenounced to us, Patti had dropped in and was positioned on the north side of the building watching the peregrines. She later hooked up with Dave and I in the back parking lot and showed us a incredible photo that she had taken of Ruben struggling to hold his altitude with a huge pigeon in his clutches as he flew over to the Kitchen.
Hopping that Patti will send us the photos so you can see the incredible size of the pigeon in comparison to Ruben’s small body size.
We closed the fledge watch down for the evening by 9:20pm with all four birds in sight and tucked in for the evening.
Stay tuned……….
A foot note: The young female hatchling - (named Neira) dawns RED coloured marker tap - (thus her nick-name) - “The lady in Red” and the young male fledgling - (named Loki) dawns BLUE coloured marker tape, thus his nick-name the Boy in Blue.
Photos submitted by Patti -now added!
Posted on June 27, 2013 11:28 pm
June 26, 2013 - Scarborough - Yellow Pages
Mark Nash Reports:
Wednesday June 26, 2013 Yellow Page Evening Watch
I arrived at YP around 7:30 pm to share space with Mark Nash, David Currie and our peregrines. Apparently, apart from some exciting excellent flight demonstrated by Loki yesterday on Tuesday, nothing much happened today. Mark and David were watching Loki sitting next to Niera in the nest ledge the whole day!
This brother and sister pair do really like hanging out with each other. They have been in the nest most of the time Tuesday and today. And they like to sit side by side with each other too. I must have more than 200 photos of them sitting next to each other. Because they are sitting so close to each other, most of the photos either show a head and a tail next to each other, or a combination of wings or head or tail, or back. You get the idea.
One minor note is that a budgie came visit the building this afternoon. I cannot get a good shot at is since it is too small and is hiding near the first floor canopy where Loki has landed on Monday. It was a pale yellow + while coloured budgie, if any of you know an owner missing a budgie with that description, please act fast. I feel bad for the budgie and pray it will stay safe.
Winnie
Posted on June 27, 2013 9:07 am
June 24, 2013 - Scarborough - Yellow Pages
CPF Postmaster Reports:
Monday June 24, 2013 Yellow Page Evening Watch
Loki taking his first flight tonight
Loki is the star of today! Loki was still at the top horizontal ledge (the same place we left him on June 23 night) running around like crazy when I arrived afterwork at 7:15pm to join David Currie and Kathy for a short watch. The mischievous baby Loki is very fond of practising his high beam balancing skill right on the ledge edge or corner.
Then with a blink of an eye, Loki slipped/fell off the horizontal ledge, landed on the first floor canopy. He fully took advantage of this extended space to run and test fly. On a few occasion, we saw him lifted off and in air during his run/fly practice. Just when we thought that we would have an easier evening, Loki took flight towards the east back side of the building and disappeared. Kathy, David and me sprinted into hot pursuit of him. Not seeing him on the ledge, we searched for him on ground for about 10 minutes but to no avail. Then Kathy and me got a call from David, that Loki had shown himself up on the other first floor Canopy, right underneath the next ledge, on the other side of the building. What a relief!
What is also interesting is Loki had definitely took a leap of faith to reach the other end of the canopy because there is this space of about 15 ft to 20 ft at least that the canopy is disconnected.
His new position gave us some closer photos we have ever taken on him since his banding. Isn’t he cute and getting handsome?!
Winnie
Posted on June 27, 2013 9:01 am
June 26, 2013 - International, National and Local News
Mark Nash Reports:
June 26th - 2013
Hi Mark
Quite the day at ICICI! The day started out with Irma & I there–AM-E was where I left her and her big brother was above her again, keeping her company! It was pretty quiet–Irma had to leave to get some sleep and I kept watch, waiting….AM-E did lots of squeezing, looking for food and company. She finally started some winger-sizing and I thought maybe…but Mom flew in–no food but some nice mother-daughter beaking! She left and then Lucky(aka Superman) flew in and there he stayed. They were so cute! I stayed till noon and it was back to work for me!
Bruce arrived around 2:30 and found all as I had left it. But a short while later, AME decided to slide allllllllll the way down the building–she fell! No flying. But she was ok, Bruce quickly scooped her up and packed her away until Mark could come and put her back on the roof.
Mark & I with Mukarram (from TV2GO, next door), met up to check on AM-E and put her back after dark. Well, to say she was VERY FEISTY would be an understatement! WOW, does this girl have MAJOR attitude!! She was on the attack from the get go–poor Mark got bitten and scratched, she hissed and screamed—my, my, this girl is going to do just fine lol. She even went after him on the roof, in the dark!! I believe Mark may be busy if she comes down again LOL!! Oh, lets hope she flies next time! And so the adventure continues…..
Cathy
Posted on June 27, 2013 8:34 am
June 26, 2013 - Toronto - Canada Square Building - Yonge and Eglinton
Marion Nash Reports:
Lyn reports that all three juveniles flying very well and Ramjet is now bugging his sisters playing tag with them when ever they fly not sure they want to play though.
Stormin chased off Turkey Vultures twice today while Haven watched.
Lyn did a head count in the evening and everyone was accounted for and all is well.
Thanks Lyn
Posted on June 27, 2013 7:36 am
June 27, 2013 - Etobicoke - Sun Life Centre
Kathy Reports:
Apologies for the lack of updates but it’s been a crazy few weeks at ESL! We had Frank MIA for several days and late last night he finally appeared on the ledge to everyone’s relief! This morning we have three on the ledge and three in the air chasing mom around for food!! Oh happy day!
Posted on June 27, 2013 7:30 am
June 26, 2013 - Scarborough - Yellow Pages
Mark Nash Reports:
June 26th- 2013
The heat and humidity have been absolutely debilitating for most of us that have had to be in the streets for 14 plus hours a day! As we finish week three of overlapping fledge watches, the stats are looking pretty good despite the overall lower production this year.
It was a very slow day on the watch at Yellow pages today, having the two young juveniles spending most of the day on the nest ledge, with the exception of the Loki, the little male fledgling who only made two flights all day, each time returning back to the nest ledge to join his sister Neira.
While they were strong, high flights around the building at the upper roof areas, it was obvious that the humidity was affecting all the birds. The adults would be best described as very inactive themselves, as they spent most of their time on the nest building itself throughout the entire day with only a a half a dozen flights themselves.
The young female juvenile - “Neira” has yet to take her first flight and seems very happy to stay in the nest ledge with not allot of flapping going on at all in comparison to many of the other hatchlings that we have watched at other nest sites this season while on the fledge watch. Linn, the resident adult female is keeping her young close to the building and although there was only three feedings today, she brought all of the food directly into the nest ledge itself. One of the reasons I’m sure that Loki is returning (and or) spending allot of his time back on the nest ledge.
Again this evening, by 8:30pm, both of the young had eaten their third meal and they were tucked down into the nest ledge and activity simply stopped by 8:30pm.
The real only excitement if that’s what you would call it, was at the end of the day when I noticed a while coloured bird on the leading edge of the lower canopy cover just above the Progress street entrance. While it took me a few moments to identify the little bird through my binoculars, it was identified as small yellow Conure or Budgie! We watched it for over an hour pace back and forth along the leading edge of the roof overhang, where it finally settled in and eventually tucked itself in the corner close to the wall as darkness fell.
Obviously someone’s Conure or Budgie that had escaped it owners. We can only hope that it will stay low and be able to escape undetected as its bright yellow colouring doesn’t offer it any camouflage, especially given its lack of any cover on the open rooftop. It did appear to have a quite a full crop so it would appear that it has found food and not starving. See several of the many photos that I was able to take.
A big thank you to Lori, Dave and Winnie who spent time with me today on the watch throughout the day as without them I may have slept the entire day away and missed all of the excitement - lol
At 9:00pm. I closed the watch for the day as it was very obvious that the juveniles were hunkered down in the nest ledge, with both parents high on their roosting spots also settled down for the evening.
I’m now off to the ICICI nest site at Don Mills and Eglinton to meet up with Cathy to do a release of the young fledgling female that Bruce had rescued and retrieved from the ground earlier today.
Stay tuned…..
Posted on June 26, 2013 11:57 pm
June 26, 2013 - Toronto - Don Mills
Marion Nash Reports:
Carina has now learned to go and get her share of the food from mom and dad and that yelling is not going to work. She is also protecting her food from her sister.
Both girls are keeping high, flying very well and landing much better.
Carina almost got a mid air handoff from mom but missed then followed her to the roof top of Harlequin to take the food.
Both Luna and Carina did most of their flying in the morning and hid from the heat and sun from about 11:00 AM to early evening and I don’t blame them it was very humid today.
This evening about 5:30 PM Lunda followed mom to the Socan building Her first trip there and got a food package while Carina waited patiently on 240.
At 5:50 both parents flew past Harlequin to the back parking area followed soon after by Luna don’t know where they went but I think it was to the top of Harlequin.
Soon after I heard the usual screaming of Luna and Carina looking up at Harlequin roof joined in.
We left with all 4 accounted for and all well.
We are winding down the all day watch now but will still spot check them as often as we can and will post any observations we get as well as that of local watchers as they come in.
Thank you to all who came out to help with the watch and as always for the wonderful support from Donna and the Harlequin staff.
Keep watching the most exciting part is yet to come watching the offspring learn the fine art of the hunt. Any bets on who will do better 
Marion
Posted on June 26, 2013 7:58 pm
June 26, 2013 - Toronto - King Street
Linda Woods Reports:
This evening, Cosmina and Anastasia were sitting on the top of the nest building, while one adult was on the nest ledge and the second was on a ledge of One Dundee Place. Midday it was reported that they are flying well and keeping up with the adults. I’m hoping by the weekend we’ll see some fabulous evening flying the young ones.
Posted on June 26, 2013 7:54 pm
June 26, 2013 - Port Colborne - ADM Mill
Doug Garbutt Reports:
We are happy to report that 2 of the 3 eggs produced here have hatched. The 1st hatched on Sat. June 22 & the 2nd was either on the 25th or 26th. We have no video so I have to monitor the progress on my lunch breaks & try not to upset Trillium. I can report that the falcons chose not to use the nest box & made their scrape on a beam instead. This will pose a problem for Mark & his team who I’m sure will want to relocate the young ones to the nest box for a better chance of survival. It’s not the 1st time they have had this challenge and hopefully everything will work out.
Posted on June 26, 2013 7:51 pm
