!!! ICICI - DonMills - both hatchlings observed!! Looking very good!!!
June 21, 2013 - International, National and Local News
Mark Nash Reports:
June 21st-2013
Very good news indeed!!
After much speculation and allot of confusion about the two little hatchlings at the Don Mills and Eglinton nest site, (referred to the ICICI nest site because of the their large sign that is located at the top of the building wall facing out towards Eglington), we have finally been able to positively confirm that BOTH hatchlings are in fact still much alive, still on the roof and looing very good indeed!
At 3:30pm this afternoon, I was able to brake away fro the Duncan Mills fledge watch for an hour and get down to the ICICI nest site to do a detailed investigation and help out Imra and Cathy. With the support of the Amexon Management group and the great security team, I was able to get to the roof again (the first time since banding) to see just what is going on with the hatchlings.
In short, seconds as I popped my head up to scan the upper roof area, I was face to face with both young hatchlings standing side by side on the leading edge of the south area of the roof, obviously catching both of them in a rather heart warming brother and sister moment,, and I couldn’t have predicted or chosen a better time to do a site visit! Both Lucky and his much larger sister Am-E were standing side by side touching beaks. While you all might find this this bazar or unbelievable, those that have ever spent any time on the fledge watch, know only too well what I’m describing.
We usually see this behaviour after one of the hatchlings has flown off and has been away from the nest and the other siblings for a period of time, and when the fledgling is finally able to return back to the nest and its siblings, they actually go through this excited greeting behaviour to one another and if you didn’t know better, you would swear that they were actually kissing each other given all of the beak to beak touching that goes on immediately after one has returned back to the nest. I will let you decide what is actually happening, but we have documented 17 years of this behaviour year after year, and this behaviour is consistent at all of the nest sites. Nice to have 17 years of data (and some very close-up views with thanks to the video cameras and the video recording and tapes that we have been able to record).
In any case, both hatchlings are fully feathered with the brown juvenile flight feathers, (not a spec of white down remains) and we’re all pretty sure that both hatchlings (lets now call them juveniles, and likely both fledglings) as we highly suspect that they the female hatchling may have also taken her first flights!
Please remember that the distances from our ground observations to the upper roof area is extreme and its very difficult to get any clear identification of the chicks given the height of the upper roof top. Add that they have the entire roof top - and the entire circumference - (360 degrees access to the leading edges for the roof), its incredibly difficult to follow them around the rooftop (especially when they can drop out of sight behind the roof top retaining wall, and then suddenly reappear second later on the opposite side of the roof. ITS A VERY LARGE BUILDING AND A HUGE ROOFTOP SPANSE!
We know that the little male - Lucky has been flying around with incredible skill, chasing his parents around in the air between the two office towers as both Irma and Cathy have witnessed some incredible games of “tag” and “catch- me-if -you- can” games with Lucky and his father. This evening, Winni was able to help out with her husband to relieve Irma and Cathy who have been on the fledge watch at ICICI for 12 hours a day for the past 7 days, (and this is in addition to running back and forth from the ICICI nest site to help me on the fledge watch up at the Duncan Mills nest site)!!
Both Cathy and Irma had taken a week of their vacation off just to help us on the various fledge watches!!! I can tell you that both of them will be returning back to work FOR A REST after what we have just put them through!!!!!!! Absolutely superstars!!!!
In any case, Winni reports this evening from her first evening on the watch:
As the first day of summer arrives, it seems that our fledgings at icici are getting more active too.
Cathy started her watch early afternoon and I met up with her at around 2:30pm to see where the little brother Lucky and sister Am-E were usually seen. While Lucky the little superman’s flying seems to be improving, Cathy was quite concerned about baby sister Am-E since she have not been seen for a few days.
I had to go back to office so i could not stay with Cathy but i plan to go back for the evening watch.
Around 6:45pm, i got a call from Cathy (thanks Cathy), that Mark Nash had gone up to the roof earlier and was able to see both brother and sister staying side by side.
When Alan and me arrive at ICICI at 7:00pm, we could immediately spot something on the building roof across from the De Beers sign.
With delight, we first saw Lucky showing off some wings. Then, we saw that there was another bump right next to him. When the bump moved around, we confirmed that it was another juvie. We also found dad and mom at the same time near by, so we have all 4 falcons in sight. Perfect to know that everyone is safe.
For the next 45 minutes, all they did was hanging around the ledge, flipping their wings with no real actions. Then, both disappeared from view until around 8:25pm when Lucky decided to open his wings again and let the wind carried him across to the De Beers building.
He flew smoothly and landed ok on the second top ledge. He kept looking back at his sister as to encourage her to come over too. The sister looked over the ledge many times and she definitely looked curious.
Around 9:00pm, things started quieting down. Little sister went back deeper into the roof and we did not see her again before we close our watch at 9:30pm. She has not fledged yet but looks like she will be ready soon. Maybe tomorrow will be the big day for her!
Winnie & Alan
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