Jack and O’Connor are both at home enjoying the sunshine on this cold blustery day. They would like to wish all their fans a very Happy New Year!
Yesterday we took a drive to the Bridge to check on Freddie and Voltaire. Freddie was sitting on the West cable, after a few minutes he flew off to the East. Voltaire was sitting on the Church Steeple busy preening herself. We sat there and watched them, it was a quiet day. Then before we left the Site, both of them were flying around together. It was good to see them again. Happy New Year to everyone. Thank You to Marilyn, Marliese and Paul and the Volunteers for doing such a good job being so faithful in watching the Peregrines.
Dennis and Gwen Patrick
This morning one of our volunteers was watching the cameras and managed to catch Sante, the resident adult male at Mississauga Executive Centre, visiting the box.
Another one of our resident adults was tray inspecting today and spending some time at home. O’Connor, resident adult female at the Etobicoke Sun Life nest site, was on her tray for some time this morning taking in the sights and preening the morning away.
This morning many of our adults were feeling the warmer temperatures and doing a little housecleaning. Tiago, who hasn’t been captured on camera but has been in the area, made an appearance at the nest tray today to do a little scraping and a bit of an inspection. Hold on to your hat Tiago as arctic air moves in tonight and the rest of this week is going to be quite frigid!! Nice to see him make an on camera appearance!!
Managed to grab a rare bonding capture from the web cam a few minutes ago. Good to see all is well at Bloor Islington with our falcon pair.
I wanted to post a quick update on several sites that our watchers have reported in on. Peregrine adults were out enjoying the sunshine yesterday as were many of our volunteers and sightings are now pouring in. They include;
Windwhistler and Erin at 18 King
Chessie and Hurricane at William Osler
Peter at Hearn
Jack and O’Connor at Etobicoke Sun Life
MacKensie at the Burlington Lift Bridge
Rhea Mae at Toronto Sheraton Hotel
Haven at Canada Square
Jenna and Chester at ICICI
One adult ( not sure which, too far away ) at Duncan Mill Road
Thanks to all who have been monitoring and thinking about our resident adults through these two storms and checking in on their pairs. With great appreciation we thank Bruce, Sue and Bill, Rob and Angie, Lyn and Linda. Great sightings everyone!
Haven had an early Christmas *pigeon*.
I was just exiting the ATM section of the bank dressed in summer sandals, clothes and a sweater, when I saw her land. She landed on the corner of the CIBC building at the corner of Yonge and Eglinton and had a pigeon in her talons. She rested there for a minute or two and took off across Yonge, west as far as the west side of Rio-Can and about half way up the building. I think her idea was to land on one of the window uprights but this was a bit difficult with a big pigeon in her feet so she flew across Eglinton, over the old TTC bus bays and disappeared. I was outside, in summer garb, and got some funny looks! Anyway I thought she might have gone into one of the balconies, as she was out of sight. She sure fooled me. She had obviously flown between Canada Square and the black building, up Yonge and landed in the same spot she had left!
She rested once more and then began plucking the pigeon. Feathers flew everywhere, like huge snowflakes. Whilst plucking feathers Haven kept a sharp lookout. I did not see Stormin anywhere around. Then she began to eat. She really tucked in non stop for minutes !
After that she had a good look around, shuffled her feathers, had a think and then grabbed the remains of the pigeon and flew again. From the direction she took I think she was aiming for either the north end of Canada Square, which is a favourite butcher block and dining room, or she wanted to stash the remains on the ledge under the nest level. I did not venture out again to verify which it was.
Lyn
A male peregrine was found on the ground in a parking lot in the Scarborough by a resident of the Thorncliff Park area unable to fly and drooping a wing.
The gentleman who found him had to chase him around the parking lot for 40 minutes before he was able to catch him up. I know from experience just how fast a peregrine can run and even hurt they can sometimes make some short low flights in effort to get away from you.
The man brought Stormin home and started calling everyone he could think of to get help for him as soon as possible. After several unsuccessful calls for help he was able to speak to Chris Risley of the Ontario Ministry of Natural resources Peterborough head office who called us right away with the information on an injured Peregrine needing our help and a band number 30 over Y who I knew was Stormin.
I called the man immediately and set up a time to pick Stormin up, despatched Mark Nash of The Canadian Peregrine Foundation to head out to collect what I thought was a very hurt Stormin. Called our Avian vet who was on stand by to help.
We were not able to get to Stormin until after 5:00 PM as the man who had him was out of town so later that day Mark did a quick examination of Stormin’s wings and body and he seemed OK no obvious break, no blood anywhere, very alert and very feisty.
As it turns out there were no serious injuries at all perhaps just a little bruising from a collision or he may have wondered too close to the Don Mills and Eglinton Peregrine nest territory and was put down by one or both of the resident adults ( that are very much still on territory) there. We will never know for sure.
Stormin spent 3 days at the CPF Raptor Center for close 24 hour observation and a little rest and lots of quail and seemed no worse for where. We were able to monitor his flight abilities and he was doing just fine.
While he was with us Bruce Masse and Lyn Thompson long time CPF volunteers went out to check on Haven Stormin’s mate to make sure she was still there and had not been part of whatever trouble Stormin had gotten into. They found her still on site and just fine but did say the she seemed to be looking for Stormin.
Since he checked out fine, was eating food and processing normally and flew up to perches and around in his pen at CPF it was decided to get him back to his nest territory Canada square and his mate Haven right away.
We set a time of 2:30 Today Sunday for his release and called CPF volunteers Lyn Thompson and Mark Thompson ( no they are not related) to meet us there to assist with the release.
Lyn got there before us and set everything up with our friends at Security at the Canada Square building nest site to get us all up to the nest ledge area to release the bird, we were then met by Mark Thompson one of our volunteers and a reporter from CTV and up we went to the nest area on the 15th floor.
Mark Nash extracted him from the rescue carrier looked him over one more time and took him out to the balcony and slowly set him down in the corner and backed away.
Stormin jumped up to the balcony ledge had a poop and a big shake and off he flew very strong hooked around the building out of site. So far so good.
We all trooped back down to ground level and headed out to our cars in the parking area brought out the binoculars and started looking for Stormin to see where he ended up. Within minutes he flew over out heads and landed back on his nest and was met in the air by Haven who obviously was happy to see him back. The both flew over to the TVO building to their usual roosting spots vocalized a bit ( I guess he was explaining his absence) then settled down like nothing had ever happened.
A very BIG thank you goes out for the efforts of the nice man ( who does not want to be mentioned) who rescued Stormin in his time of distress and to Chris from The Ministry of Natural Resources for getting to us right away and lastly but not least to Lyn and Mark for spending their Sunday afternoon on another successful peregrine rescue release.
Mark and Marion Nash
