A rare glimpse of Erin and Stormin on the ledge at King St. No nest this year but happy to see them.
Thank you to all who were out at the watch today for day one of this community stewardship program. Katherine started off the day yesterday morning with a quick check before heading in to work and all three girls were now in the window well play fort. They were bopping around and having fun until all their breakfast energy was spent. It wasn’t long before the three were basking in the morning sun and relaxing. Margaret arrived around 9am and was joined by Grace. For the most part the day was relatively calm. Window well adventures, preening and napping were high on the agenda until late afternoon when the three girls began the call for food. In a baby peregrine’s world, screaming is most effective by flapping madly while doing it and so they all made sure that the adults were paying attention. By 2pm Bruce had joined the watch and things began to get interesting.
The resident adult female, Midnight, who I am sure was sensing the perfection of the moment (wind speed, direction, lighting, etc.) began a campaign that was bent on getting someone airborne. Midnight did fly-bys with food, touch and go landings and every other trick in her arsenal. This went on for over an hour and by Bruce’s account, the only thing she didn’t do was push one off herself! The three girls were excited by all of this but were not inspired to follow through. A valiant effort by Midnight and surely shows us what her intentions are for her three offspring… …let’s get to the air!!! Winston arrived for the evening close and a good feed came in at 8pm and Midnight beak fed all three. By 8:30 the girls were calming down and by 9pm the resident adult male, Renegade, arrived with more to eat. He decided to let the girls do with it what they will, dropped the package off, and left for his night watch post. By dusk two of the girls were in the box sleeping with the third in the window well.
Thank you to all of the watchers that participated yesterday! Today should be a raucous day as Midnight continues her efforts to get the girls out and flying.
A huge thank you to Katherine who has been able to provide us with periodic updates on the activities of the three girls in the nest box… …or should I say window well! It would seem that yesterday all three of the MEC chicks discovered that the nest box is indeed elevated above the base of the window well and firmly placed so that it is level with the nest ledge. This gives them a gap beneath it to run back and forth under the box once they brave the hop down into the well itself. All three girls were in the well yesterday playing and exploring and when Midnight brought in food, she had to seek them out in their “play fort”. All three had a great feed and each in turn finally popped up to the ledge and back into the nest box for the night.
This is a great confidence building activity for the chicks as they begin to explore life outside the nest box and the great big world beyond it. The next usual step is that the chicks “jump the gap” from one ledge to the next and begin to explore other window wells along the nest ledge face of MEC 1 building their strength and confidence further. It doesn’t always go as planned as sometimes they will forego this step and move on to fledge. Margaret, Grace and Bruce will be on site today to be the “on the ground” crew and Katherine will provide us with a different perspective when she can.
Here we go folks! Anyone wishing to come out and help, we welcome you to join the community stewardship watch of the young ones. Contact us through our website or head office if you have time to share at the MEC watch this year!
Chroma, Reggie, Ginnie and Redbud are all growing rapidly and look like they are anxious to fly. They are no longer just fluffy white chicks, they are now black and white as their feathers grow in. The nest is strewn with many wings of seagulls and other birds. When the young ones are passed out after a meal it’s sometimes hard to tell where the falcons are as there are so many feathers in the nest box. Chroma is one large baby and has been flapping her almost grown wings like a grown falcon. Mystery brought in a seagull on Friday and poor little Reggie got all tangled up in the wings of the feast as she brought it into the nest box as his sisters clambered to get a piece of it. All are venturing out onto the balcony and are very active.
The chicks will be 37 days old on June 11, which is the official start of the fledge watch. A training session will be held on June 10 at 6:30 pm in the City of Kitchener parking lot by CTV off of Green Street. All are welcome and with 4 strong and active chicks we will need all the help we can get to keep these young falcons out of harms way! The watch will be on for about 10-15 days. If you are interested in joining the team, please visit the CPF home page and click on Volunteers to sign up.
Lyn was able to get this picture of the 2 chicks on the ledge.
We are able to confirm the first hatch there could be more than 1 chick but mom is not getting up to allow a look.
Congratulations Brampton and CBRE!
With the three girls at the Mississauga Executive Centre getting older, bolder and bouncy we have pulled together the team that will start tomorrow the watch for these three jumbo jets. All three girls turn 38 days today and are looking more like the falcons they are to be and less like fuzzy gremlins. Adrianna is the most active and bold of the bunch and appears to have taken up the role of group spokesfalcon. Yesterday she was out of the nest box and on the porch with her sisters relaxing when suddenly she decided that the window well where the nest box is located looked like fun. She dropped down in which had Midnight over like a bullet to monitor her girl as she played with gack and ran back and forth beneath the nest box (the box being in a window well and elevated to match the ledge level which chicks at MEC love to run back and forth under and pop up on the other side). Adrianna (red tape) popped up onto the ledge after several hours and was content that her exploration was a success. Hawkeye (blue tape) and Ieva (yellow tape) were not as adventurous and were content to sit on the “porch” of the nest box flapping and preening the remaining visible down between their fast growing feathers.
Midnight is still feeding the three girls a ridiculous amount of food. Over the past 4 days Bruce Massey and I have been spot checking and at peak the resident adult female is feeding every hour and a half. At one point on camera I watched Midnight enter the box with food and the three sleepy girls ignored her… …thanks Mom but we’re good.
Tomorrow will be 39 days of age for the girls and so I dropped off the rescue carrier and towel yesterday and we officially start tomorrow with Margaret, Grace and Bruce holding the fort for the first two days with help from Katherine and Winston.
If you have time to help out at the Mississauga Executive Centre fledge watch this year, we would love to have you come out and join us! Any time that you can spare is always ALWAYS a huge help and contribution to the community team effort. Fledge watch typically lasts 10 to 14 days during which we cover as much of the day as possible. Once the young have shown that they can fly and land with control we will scale back the full watch and continue to spot check the progress of our youngsters. It is an amazing rollercoaster experience that I promise you will never forget! Visit our volunteer application area on our website or contact our head office to be a part of this amazing experience!
More food for the little one. Tiago delivered more food, but it looks like the little one just ate.
The boys still have a lot of down and have not really started their pre-fledge flapping exorcises yet so we plan on keep a close eye on the camera to see how they are doing but looks like fledge watch will start next week.