June 21, 2015 - Mississauga - Executive Centre
Tracy Simpson Reports:
Thank you so much to Winston who stopped in last night for a quick peek on how our three girls are doing. Winston writes;
My spot check took over an hour but I finally got all three girls flying high between the MEC buildings. All were flying high, sustained and with confidence. They were even playing 3way tag during their big flight.
Winston
Posted on June 21, 2015 3:24 pm
June 19, 2015 - Kitchener - CTV-Bell Media Tower
Lisa Reh Reports:
Marg and Sarah were on the watch at 9:30 on Friday morning to find all 4 kids on the CTV Tower, 1 on the nest box and the other 3 on the top platform. The action started at 10:00, as the adults arrived and then left again with lots of flights back and forth from the tower to the hospital roofs above the H. Briefly, the entire family was sighted together but with all the action, it was too hard to keep track. By 11:00, Caster and Mystery were back on the Sun Life tower. Martha and Dale joined the watch and by 1:00 all 4 kids, were resting on the hospital roof behind the blue letter H.
At 5:30, Martha and Lisa were watching from various vantage points. There were at least 12 turkey vultures soaring over Mount Hope Street between the hospital and the Sun Life parking lot. One of the peregrines was soaring and screaming. Higher and higher it went and then started to dive bomb the turkey vultures. The other adult came out to go after the vultures but went out of sight shortly, probably to make sure the kids were all right. The remaining peregrine zoned in on one poor vulture and dive-bombed him again and again, making at least 4 or 5 direct hits. The vulture flew overtop of the hospital roof, close to the H and out of sight towards Park Street. On further inspection of the nest sight, at least 2 of the kids were on top of the tower, feeding on a gull which what was attracting all the vultures! The other vultures soared way up high and out of the peregrines attack zone. I left the nest site around 6:15 and the vultures were still snooping around. At 7:00, I saw one of the adults hunting over the Mount Hope Street cemetery, it circled higher and higher over the neighbourhood and went into a deep dive over the cemetery and I lost sight of it in the tree line.
I went back to the site at 7:30 and joined Martha. Chris joined us a little while later. From 8:15 - 9:00 there were lots of flights back and forth between the hospital and the tower. The adults came back and forth from the Sun Life tower and Caster brought a food drop in at 9:00 and flew back to Sun Life. All of the young ones returned to the tower, one landing a little awkwardly on the King Street side and another landed right on the drum right beside another and they snuggled in together. We left the watch at 9:15 knowing that all were safe and accounted for.
Posted on June 21, 2015 3:11 pm
June 21, 2015 - Toronto - Don Mills
CPF Postmaster Reports:
June 13th - 2015
Well, as most of the peregrine watches already know, size doesn’t matter when it come to a peregrine and being the fastest animal on the planet! As a matter of fact, in this case, smaller is actually better, especially when your as fast as an F-16 jet fighter, (and a mother) looking to protect their babies!!
The bigger that target, the better!! 
While you can’t help feel the terror and pain for the poor unsuspecting Osprey that just happened to float by on its way somewhere??,, when suddenly out of the blue, and from above, two attacking F-16 jet fighters in the form of a mother female peregrine falcon and her mate protecting their young fledglings drops in,,, literally drops in from above and tears a strip off your back!!
A big thank you to Lucie and hubby who just happened to be at the right place, at the right time and caught Quest in action delivering some good old fashion peregrine pain to an unsuspecting Osprey,,, obviously in wrong place at the wrong time!!
All of the photo credit goes to Arvo Poolar for taking these fantastic photos and sharing them with us!
Enjoy……….
** Note - The Osprey did in fact “get-out-of-Dodge” with only just a few less feathers and in need of a change of its underpants! (Sorry, I meant to say, a change of its under-down).
Posted on June 21, 2015 2:18 pm
June 18, 2015 - Toronto - Don Mills and Eglinton - Amexon
Mark Nash Reports:
June 18th - 2015
Some updated news on little Lily-Gean and her situation. Some very good news indeed, there are no life threatening or long term injuries, but a fractured keel will need some time to repair before she can go back to her parents. If you have ever had a broken collar bone or fractured ribs, you can get an idea of the discomfort that this little bird is experiencing with sort of injury.
The best news, is that just like any fractured bone, it will easily repair itself in a eight to ten days and will not cause her any flight problems down the road after its healed! The juveniles repair and heal very quickly in comparison to us older folks!!! Lol
A quickly look at her x-rays tells the “inside” story.
Well, it has been a challenge at the Don Mills nest site this season, especially with all of the nest building rooftop activity going on. Sadly, with the microwave dish work that has been ongoing on the roof of the nest building itself, this has caused a number of problems,, especially that of the increased daily (and nightly) nest building rooftop activity needed by the technicians that have been attending to the giant Microwave Dish’s.
Unfortunately, one of these nightly disturbances was likely responsible for Lily’s premature fledge, as it has had both resident adults airborne in the darkness flying overhead in an effort to defend and ward-off the perceived human rooftop threats above and behind the nest ledge. As such, this is likely the attributing factor that had Lily was scared off the nest ledge to take flight in the darkness and ended up getting injured as she made a hard grounding and contact on the concrete in the parking lot.
Thus the need for her rescue and retrieval. Sadly, little Lily was that last to hatch, being four to five days younger, and much smaller, (and much further behind her two other siblings by virtue of her younger age). We know only tooo well, that this simple fact alone puts her at a disadvantage of having to compete with her two much larger and far more experienced siblings, now fully flighted.
Given that the young peregrine fledglings only have 60 plus/minus days with their parents to learn all of the necessary life skills that they will need to survive on their own once they leave their parents care, a ten plus day absence away from the parents and siblings at this critical time of the her training and development will have her at a huge disadvantage as you know.
It is unfortunate that we can’t do the same type of rehab with Lily and her parents that we did several years ago out at the Etobicoke Bloor and Islington nest site that worked out so successful, as the Don Mills nest building rooftop also has a similar very tall retaining wall that surrounds the entire rooftop that would keep her contained and from flying anywhere until she is actually repaired and physically capable to do so,,, allowing both her parents (and her siblings) full access to her for food, care and parental support,, but the daily and nightly nest building rooftop access by the Microwave Dish technicians prevents this type of rehab to happen.
We will be monitoring her repair progress closely, and hope that she will be cleared to be released back to the parents care before her time runs out. Her two other siblings are far advanced in their flights and doing very well indeed.
Stay tuned……………..
Posted on June 21, 2015 12:42 pm
June 21, 2015 - Toronto - Don Mills
Marion Nash Reports:
Ann has reported that the boys are flying well and playing together and sent in some great photos.
Posted on June 21, 2015 12:20 pm
June 19, 2015 - Scarborough - Yellow Pages
Marion Nash Reports:
Checked Yellow Pages. Doesn’t look promising. Checked all the ledges. Lynn was on the NW ledge on north side but no signs of nest. Found 1 egg on NE ledge East side but not attended.
Kathy
Posted on June 21, 2015 12:06 pm
June 20, 2015 - Etobicoke - Sun Life Centre
Tracy Simpson Reports:
I opened the site this morning with three kids singing on the ledge and Mel doing very well. He made a flight from the nest building from the ledge just beneath the ADP sign all the way to Moneris and although he came up just a foot or so short and did the bat, he pumped hard and flap walked up the wall to the roof. I watched him make another flight back to the ledge under the ADP sign and that’s where he stayed for the morning. The three on the ledge were ridiculous. At the mere thought of food they would all flap rapidly in tandem and came close several times to knocking each other off. Bruce and Rob took over the watch from me at around 830am and I headed up to William Osler for a site check.
By the time I was leaving for Osler we went to check on Mel and he had flown from his ledge under ADP. I walked the perimeter as did Bruce and we were unable to find him. The hope was that he was tucked back in a ledge and sleeping. Bruce decided it was prudent to wait for the ledge dwellers to calm down before he turned his attention away in pursuit of Mel’s location as they are beyond ripe for a flight. By early afternoon all had settled on the ledge and Bruce started to make the rounds. He wasn’t a few steps into it when he found Mel low on the mezzanine overhang above the Centre Tower Bloor St. entrance. Bruce set up to watch both him and the potential fledges up above and waited for Mel to make his next move. He looked great. He was running and flapping, preening and roosting and looking none the worse for wear. I called to check in at around 5pm and Bruce explained Mel’s current conundrum. Luckily Bruce had Cathy with him and so had ample support in watching everyone. Given that the Osler birds are way too fat to fly (at least 3 full pigeons today so far) I decided to head back down to Islington and Bloor to offer my support. I met up with Bruce and Cathy and indeed little Mel was relaxing just beside the overhang on a little ledge. It really didn’t allow him much room to open his wings and so when he took flight across Bloor street it was low. He flew over towards the Longest Yard but didn’t make the landing. Instead he ended up on an even lower elevation on a sloped piece of plywood covering a renovated store entrance. The pitch was steep and the plywood slippery so he was really struggling to get a good grip. He tried for the high point and kept sliding down and so he walked back and forth, sliding and slipping as he went. This was terrifying for us to watch as one of a couple of things were set to happen. He could take flight and make it across the street to the Kingsway on the Park ground level wall; that would be awesome. He could slip as he was flapping and turn to fly putting him in heavy road traffic at only a few feet off of the ground. He could slip and end up on the ground in La Petite France joining several folks for dinner on the patio. What concerned us most was that he might end up in traffic that we could do nothing about. We sent out the SOS to other watchers for some physical bodies down at the site and then decided we would try to net him. He was absolutely unsafe in his current location, we were losing daylight and we had the people in place to do it.
First we waited for the traffic to die down a little on Bloor St. We needed a no traffic window to do this in case he flew. We needed to get a little higher up with the net and so John from the Longest Yard provided us with a chair to use. Then we needed watchers in place; Cathy and I on the south, Bruce on the north side and Rob in the middle. We looked down Bloor Street and had all traffic stopped at red lights at Islington and Royal York; the road was completely empty. I went for it. Mel was just out of my reach and jumped the net. He was airborne. He flew across Bloor at about 2 feet above the road with Rob running shotgun across the empty road beside him. He made for the low second storey retaining wall of the Kingsway on the Park and absolutely stuck the landing. He was safe. He moved about on this flat surface a few times and peeked in Baylie’s window to say hi. She came out to greet him with towel in hand but he moved to a section of the wall that cannot be reached. There Mel remained and decided that he was going to spend the night there. He was exhausted and so were we.
The other three madmen are still up on the nest ledge. The longer that Ferris, Ninja and Glider stay on the ledge the stronger they get. Also it increases the likelihood of multiple fledges in one day. That said I’m going to bed now so that I can be back on site by 5am for Mel. Bruce will be joining me as will Roger for the dawn follies and it is our sincere desire that all stay high and that Mel get home.
More to come…
Posted on June 20, 2015 11:49 pm
June 20, 2015 - Etobicoke - Sun Life Centre
Baylie Kastner Reports:
I hear from Tracy that Mel has had a very busy day. My involvement began when I detected movement outside my condo wind at around 8 o’clock.
I rushed out to my patio to see Mel perched on the wall. It is now after 11 o’clock and he is still there and hasn’t decided whether to go to sleep. He may be a little confused because there is a street light close to where he is and maybe it isn’t dark enough. I do hope he doesn’t try anything foolish overnight.
Posted on June 20, 2015 11:25 pm
June 20, 2015 - Etobicoke - William Osler
Tracy Simpson Reports:
This morning we received notice from Ross Bartlett at William Osler that we may have had an early fledge today. It appeared that one of the juveniles may have flown and ended up on the west side of the hospital on the 10th ledge. Tomorrow (Saturday) was our scheduled spot check for readiness to fledge as the oldest chick is now 35 days of age and we were concerned that we may have had a slip off or an eager beaver so off we went to check it out.
Bruce headed out there before going over to Islington and Bloor to take a look around and was only able to find three of the four on the ledge. Two of the chicks are still half covered in down and the other is looking more like a potential fledgling with little areas of down left to go. He searched the grounds to no avail and checked the nest tray camera while I did another round of the grounds from a little further out to get a better angle on the ledge. Chessie left on a hunt while Hurricane sat in the tower and returned with a pigeon for the kids. She took it around to the east ledge and up pops four heads, the fourth one sporting a really neat downy mohawk!
The good news is that all four kids are on the ledge safe and sound. I will be out tomorrow to continue my assessment of the young and start gathering the troops for the full time fledge watch to begin. Thank you so much to Ross at William Osler for keeping such a close eye on your young ones. We look forward to starting the full time fledge watch sometime very soon.
Posted on June 20, 2015 12:55 am
June 20, 2015 - Etobicoke - Sun Life Centre
Tracy Simpson Reports:
Yesterday we started off with Rob and Marion keeping an eye on the Boys Club until Bruce arrived in the afternoon to close. While there were a lot of “touch and go” landings by both Lucky and O’Connor there were no takers to the sky yesterday. We knew that we weren’t far from a launch though and so I was down this morning to open the watch at 6am. There was lots of flapping on the ledge and it wasn’t long before Lucky came in with first breakfast. He all but threw it at them and he was gone on another hunt. The foursome grabbed the prey and scrambled around to get a piece of the pigeon pie and it was quite the scrap. It wasn’t 10 minutes later that Lucky was back with second breakfast and once again dumped it on the ledge and was gone searching for more. O’Connor was in with third breakfast and that just did it. Everyone was getting in on the action accept for one… …Ferris. What a tantrum. Screaming, flapping, wailing and grabbing at the nest tray footing the wood and stomping his feet. Wow. I met up with Trish who has joined us this year for the fledge watch (oh man, thank you Trish!!) and we sat and watched the wee boys for a while. I left the watch in Trish’s most capable hands who held down the fort until Bruce arrived. He took over and set up for an evening of food, flap and frolic. At around 7pm he caught movement to the west and went to check it out. Well! If it wasn’t little Mel out for his first flight and landed squarely on the ledge beneath the ADP sign! He took another flight over to the Moneris building and once again aced the landing. Three more flights from Mel tonight that ended with him back on the Moneris building at the base of the antenna looking up at Mommy. Great flights by Mel and his siblings are raring to go.
Posted on June 20, 2015 12:43 am
