Wednesday at William Osler
June 26, 2015 - Etobicoke - William Osler
Tracy Simpson Reports:
So Wednesday Benny was on a mission to tear it up. He had been flying amazingly well all morning and was now bored. Sven and Winston were on the north side of the nest ledge and Peggy was on the northeast corner. Benny landed on the ledge next to Sven and walked in between him and the back wall. Benny then lunged forward at Sven and pushed him off of the ledge. Sven was shocked to be in the air and he looped out over the north parking lot and made it up to the roof. Next was Winston. Benny ran down the ledge to his brother and pulled the exact same stunt except this time Winston struggled to get up to the roof, circled around and finally made rooftop on the south side. Benny didn’t dare try that stunt with Peggy as she would have just pulverized him. She’s a tank and will move of her own will thank you much. Sven took another flight as he was miserable on the roof and wanted to go home. I should preface this by saying that Sven still has a head full of down and of the three boys was the least ready for this. Sven’s flight got him what he wanted which was home to the ledge. It wasn’t pretty as he threw himself at the louvres and bounced onto the nest ledge rather than landing smartly. He shook it off and went back to bed. Winston ran the rooftop screaming all morning. My tough guy on the ledge, wee Winston, was now a chicken outside of his comfort zone. Peggy was unimpressed with it all until she realized that food was going to them and not her. Still, she was unmoved. Sven did yet another flight back up to the roof and when Bruce arrived, Sven and Winston were on the roof, Peggy on her corner of the nest ledge and Benny the jet was on the north H taking daddy’s spot on the couch.
Bruce took over at 2 o’clock with all 4 birds accounted for. It was pretty quiet for about an hour or so but as the afternoon cooled down then there was some action. The two boys that were evicted by their brother in the morning started to rev up. Occasionally Peggy would pop her head up but for the most part she dozed until 5:00 or so. Brother Benny had joined his sister for a nap for an hour or so. The two roof boys, Sven and Winston, revved up and started to doing laps and lengths. Benny joined them, but he did more adventurous flights with an occasional flight out and back from the roof. Then it got really hard to follow the boys when Chessie and Hurricane got involved. They generally sat on the northwest antennas and the boys, mostly Sven and Benny, would fly up and chase the parents off them. When Benny did it the first time, he knocked Chessie clear off much to her surprise. Chessie was unimpressed and returned the favor by hovering over top of Benny as he sat on the antenna but he didn’t budge. At one point I had Benny, Sven and an adult on 3 separate antennas. Winston was also doing well with flights and landings but did have a tiny wobble in some of them. He missed an attempt at the ledge and ended up on the 10th floor window below. Mom made several attempts to encourage him off but he was too busy looking at himself in the window. Finally mom encouraged him back up to the ledge and Winston walked around back to the north side. That essentially was the night, with all the chicks showing up on east ledge and tucked in by 8 o’clock.
By Wednesday morning Benny the jet had his big shoes on and was behaving more like an adult than a 43 day old chick. He was on the north H and suddenly began to alarm call. He took off and started to chase a Great Blue Heron over the emerg parking lot. He made one grab at its tail and then circled back to the roof. Like father like son. More updates on Thursday’s adventures to come!