Islington Bloor; Mel Down Low and Three Set to Go
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…