Banding Day at William Osler a Huge Success
June 03, 2013 - Etobicoke - William Osler
Tracy Simpson Reports:
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.
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