Luna is flying well but Carina is still staying low, BUT holding her altitude never the less!
June 24, 2013 - Toronto - Don Mills
Mark Nash Reports:
June 24th - 2013
Today was one of the hottest days in the year so far with almost record high temps and debilitating humid-x!
Despite the heat, both fledglings were more active than you might have expected today with Luna really demonstrating her ability to not only hold her altitude, but she is now investigating the world around her.
While Luna is still a typical fledgling, (with some good landings, and some not so good landings), she clearly has mastered sustained flight and no longer of high risk of coming to the ground and needing to be rescued- (provided of course that she stop crashing into windows)!! By the end of the day today, she had flown much farther in sustained flight almost out of sight to the west having landed on the roof top of a large gray rooftop. Quest closely followed her and the two of them they spent more than 30 minutes together perched on the roof top far out to the west. Satisfied that Luna was not in any trouble, Quest later left her on the roof and eventually flew back to the nest building and watched over Carina.
Throughout the day, Luna had half a dozen very good flights to some of the surrounding upper roof top elevations clearly demonstrating that she has gained the confidence and mastering controlled flight. On one occasion, she ending up on one her flights miscalculating her landing, and slipping down into one of the balconies on the copper/pink coloured building next to 225 Duncan Mill road building. After spending 15 minutes out of our view down in the enclosed balcony, she finally re-appeared on the leading edge of the balcony and eventually flew out no worse for ware.
Throughout the day, Kendal brought in several very fresh kills, and for the first time this season, I witnessed his hunting skills and incredibility ability to simply take a pigeon out of the sky with little effort as he simply passed over the pigeon while in flight and snatched it out of the sky.
Carina on the other hand, (while still holding her altitude) has not yet regained her confidence after colliding with the window several days ago, and although has made a half a dozen short flights from building to building (between the 220 and 240 Duncan Mill road buildings), she is still sticking very close to the nest building preferring to favour the 240 Duncan Mill road building ledges. She has yet to gain any real altitude beyond the mid way elevation. Both fledglings have been fed today and Quest and Kendal have been very attentive indeed.
It has been incredibility funny to see the two mindsets of the adults over the past week, as Kendal brings continues to bring in fully feathered - unprepared kills (several have been very much still alive) and deliver them to the fledglings. When Quest has sighted him, she has quickly flown in screaming at the top of her lungs and snatches the unprepared food offerings from both Kendal AND the fledglings and flies off with the food to properly prepare it, then returns to feed the fledglings with the prepared food.
On several occasions, Kendal has slipped in un-noticed by Quest, and simply dropped fresh kills and unprepared food offerings, (some have been retrieved cashes) and simply dropped them off in front of the fledglings and flown off. Luna has now figured out what to do them and is starting to eat on her own, while Carina is still confused as to what to do them. She screams, jumps around on the them until Quest attends and feeds her beak to beak.
By the end of the watch today, both Luna and Carina were perched on the window ledges (one atop of each other (on separate window ledges) on the east side of the 240 Duncan Mill road building. Both Quest and Kendal had flown over to the Thales building to the south east and remained there until dark. Luna had lied down on he ledge was hunkered down for the night while Carina remained standing tucked into the corner of the ledge.
A huge thank you to Donna Hays and all the Harlequin staff for their incredible support, Sally, Karen and others that have have given up their lunch hours and brakes to come out in support, and to Murray and Bob who have also been out covering my back and helping out on the fledge watch,,,, and to Fred from the Redborne Realty management group and their security that has been incredibly supportive and understanding with us invading their facilities and roof tops to do releases. A big thank you to Berkley property management group, their security team, the board of directors and business owners at 220 Duncan Mill road for allowing us accesses to their facilities.
A GREAT TEAM INDEED!!!
Stay tuned……