Riding the winds
June 23, 2015 - Kitchener - CTV-Bell Media Tower
Lisa Reh Reports:
Fraser was on the watch at 8:30 Monday morning. All was quiet except for the construction noise. He located three of the juveniles and was able to identify Ginnie who was on the top platform of the CTV tower with one of her siblings. The third one was on the hospital tower while one of the adults could be seen atop Sun Life. At 9:20, I stopped by and observed some baiting games led by one of the adults. The parent flew circles around the hospital emergency entrance with all four kids in hot pursuit. They flew north on King Street, a little above the roof tops and then on towards the Sun Life parking lot. It looked as if the adult was trying to teach them how to chase prey. They all few back to the hospital roof where breakfast was dropped on top of the hospital. The adult took off while three of the juveniles fought over breakfast, with the fourth watching nearby. David was on the watch at 10:30 and saw a few flights, one from the hospital roof over the CTV tower, and another landed on the ledge of the hospital roof and then dropped out of sight. Possibly the same bird, popped back up on the flashing and then went out of sight again. At 12:45, Kim and I observed quite a few flights back and forth between the hospital and the CTV tower. A few of the flights were much lower like what Karen observed the night before. One juvenile flew between the wires and another bumped into the red siding underneath the hospital antenna, dropped down and flew around the antenna, then landing. At 1:15, all were together on the hospital roof and one of the adults came in.
Just before 5:00, I found a decapitated pigeon on the sidewalk on King Street. Partially plucked, it was probably dropped by one of the kids when they were being baiting by one of the parents. David was back watching again at 5:00. At 6:00, Caster and one juvenile circled the hospital antenna a few times and then flew towards Sun Life. Caster landed on top of the building and the juvenile went out of sight as it started to rain. By 6:30, it was it was thundering and raining really hard. Two juveniles could be seen on the hospital roof by the blue H sign as David left the watch. At 8:30, I sighted all 4 juveniles flagging the H sign and one of the adults was on Sun Life. There was a little bit of flying back and forth between the hospital and CTV. One of the adults came in, perhaps with a food drop, as there was a bit of squabbling amongst the kids. The second adult was perched on the hospital antenna watching over the kids on the roof. At 9:15, Sandy could see all four juveniles hunkered down behind the big drum on top of the CTV tower as the storm approached. One adult flew away and the other was perched on top of Sun Life.
Tuesday morning brought high, gusty winds and at 9:30, I saw one falcon riding the winds around the Kings Towers antenna. It had to sail around the tower three times before it was able to land. David reported that the winds were about 60 km/hr at 1:00. Kim and I were out at 1:00 as well and could see three out of four hunkered down on the rooftop under the big H and out of the wind. At 2:30 Karen sighted all four siblings in the same place. At 2:40 Mystery brought a package and landed on the roof just above the juveniles. One took off and joined the adult right away and shortly after another joined them. It looked like Redbud and Chroma had a good lunch and played a bit of tug of war with each other. Reggie and Ginnie could be heard but were out of sight and didn’t join the feeding. One of the parents rode the winds for quite a while and then landed on Sun Life against the wall where the previous nest box was. It was probably Caster, as when Dale arrived at 4:15, Caster was perched on his favorite roof ledge on Sun Life. Mystery came in from Kings Towers and two juveniles followed her over to the hospital roof. The wind was still quite brisk and Dale could see two of the juveniles on the south ledge of the upper level of the hospital. At 4:30, from Sun Life I saw one adult flying around the Bauer lofts playing baiting games north of the building. It was too far to identify the second bird but if it was a juvenile this was the farthest away from the nest site observed so far. I lost sight of them as they headed north towards uptown Waterloo. A few minutes later one of the adults rode the winds back onto the Sun Life building.
Photos courtesy of Karen von Knobloch
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