!!! Fledge watch Day 3 - Lorne goes missing, suddenly 5 hours later, he returns home!!
June 29, 2014 - Scarborough - Yellow Pages
Mark Nash Reports:
Sunday June 29th - 2014
Short report today with the important stuff. The little fledgling named Lorne - (Blue tape), fledged this morning at 9am and didn’t do very well.. He took flight at around 9am and flew west towards the Investors Group building and was quickly turned around by Linn - (his mom). Lorne was turned around south on Milner headed back to the nest building but was unable to make any of the upper elevations that he was trying for and slammed into the west side windows of the Yellow pages building, and bounced off back the glass and went into a spin and ended up falling out onto the middle of Milner Ave on the roadway.
Marion and I scrambled to dodge the traffic in an effort to retrieve him from the ground, but he ran south down Milner Ave, got some air and ended up in the small trees that make up the boarder of the Yellow pages parking lot and Milner Ave. We searched and scanned the small trees for over an hour and was unable to find him.
We resumed our positions, (with Marion on the west side of Milner Ave to be able to view the entire west and south sides), and I positioned myself on the north east corner to be able to view the north and east sides of the building, and waited for him to re-appear.
Back on the nest ledge, the other two juveniles remained on the nest ledge with little activity for most of the day.
Just before noon, Lorne finally re-appeared, not from the trees, but from the ground (obviously hidden in the scrubs on the ground below the trees) and bolted north up Milner Ave. With a strong south west wind, he was carried north of Progress on Milner and quickly disappeared from our view. For the next hour, with Marion in position watching the west and south elevations, I searched Milner Ave as I walked up to Sheppard Ave and back several times, but was unable to locate him anywhere. By tis time, Dave and Bonnie had arrived and they held their position on the north east side to watch the nest ledge and he other two juveniles that were still in the nest ledge.
Very quiet most of the balance of the day until just after 5pm with out of no-where, Lorne finally re-appeared high in the sky, with s strong south west wind in his face to give him altitude, he slammed into the upper aluminum roof slope - ABOVE THE ACTUAL NEST LEDGE,,, slipped down the sloped roof and fell down into the upper walkway above the actually nest ledge directly above the nest ledge itself!! He was home!!
Moments later, he appeared on the upper roof retaining wall ledge about the nest ledge. Wow, this bird has a very hard head to have been able to survive this second impact!!! For the next few hours, he ran around the retaining wall ledge and finally ended up dropping down onto another lower elevation, down onto a ledge cavity close to the old nest ledge that his parents nested in two years ago and that’s where he remained until darkness.
Linn, (his mom), finally rewarded him with a huge pigeon diner later on in the evening.
The other two juveniles still in the nest ledge got a small feeding throughout the day, but only one feeding all day. At darkness, all three juveniles were in view on the north side of the nest building and we departed for home.
Attila joined us this evening later on in the day and will be out early tomorrow morning to open the watch.
Stay tuned……..
Sadly,