What a day
June 10, 2015 - Toronto - Don Mills
Marion Nash Reports:
It’s been quite an eventful day at the Don Mills location! It involved a variety of architecture and a rescue.
I arrived as early as I could this morning before 7:00 a.m., anxious that Harper may have taken flight when daylight arrived. Thankfully he was still on the roof ledge of Bayview Glen school’s Moatfield Road building and I was able to monitor him running along until he couldn’t go any further and remained at the South East corner for some time being royally harassed by very agitated robins, swallows, grackles and a tiny warbler who may have not been too sure at one point who to harass! I now know there are a variety of nests across in the Kraft grounds! Bob arrived and took a walk behind the Kraft building (whose grounds we were standing in) and assessed the landscape, should Harper fly out into the open school fields below us or toward trees and not manage to reach another building (how do we get down there? etc.). The time spent watching Harper here also allowed us to watch how staff came up through the back of the school on a path linking the Westin Hotel to Kraft and Bayview Glen grounds (good to know!).
Harper eventually took off, south (wrong way your nest is north!) tried to circle south behind Bayview Glen, disappeared behind all the trees, then came into view again flying west towards Valleybrook Drive but turned south and all we could do was stay put and watch through binoculars and cross all fingers and toes that he wouldn’t make it past the Westin Hotel and over York Mills Road. He hit a concrete wall on the Westin Hotel, regained flight, attempted to continue south around the east side of the hotel but probably (thankfully?) due to the bump, came to rest somewhere…but where? Oh dear. We were convinced he must be on a corner balcony of one of the suites or on the roof of a small maintenance building. We called the hotel who had their maintenance staff take a look (nothing) and then allowed us to enter the hotel and explore an open garden/sitting area above the function rooms at the back of the hotel. We scanned the foliage around the garden, glanced up and there he was, perched on the ledge of a balcony. Hotel staff were fairly sure he had checked in to the balcony of Suite 705. Phew! But the room was occupied. Yikes. Now what? Poor Marion’s phone must have been buzzing like black fly season because of all the advice we were seeking. We did realize that If he took off we were trapped in a lovely guest retreat with Adirondack chairs and foliage, but no quick exit to the street to monitor his direction. Bob was sure we would be able to see this balcony from the north east corner of the Kraft parking lot, and as Harper kept hopping from the railing down to the balcony, we were confident we had time to get back to where we were before to observe. The Kraft lot did give us the perfect view. Worrying that nobody was monitoring the other two birds, Bob went back to check on Berkley and Kline, just before Harper took off flying again! This time due north, turning slightly west towards Valleybrook Drive again and then I lost sight of him. I was sure he’d either hit a window or landed on a roof somewhere near the corner of Lesmill Rd and Valleybrook, so we hot footed it to that area and, sure enough, found him on the roof of the blue glassy SOCAN building (we thought it was the Zeiss glass building but, checking Google maps, I see it’s deceiving signage and it’s actually the Socan building that Harper was on up to when I left at 6:00 p.m.).
All the anxious texting these flights prompted had Cathy Kerr joining us as soon as she could, as well as another volunteer to watch with Bob and me (until Marion could get to us after a banding). We were able to divide then, watching Harper from the Harlequin parking lot as the thunder and rain came through (which he seemed to enjoy immensely, flapping about and prancing on the roof).
Feeling pretty good about Harper, Cathy thought she should go and see if Bob needed help, because while Harper had us all in a tizzy earlier, Berkeley had fledged and ended up on the ledge right above the 220 Duncan Mill Rd sign. Low, and vulnerable. While he ledge hopped and entertained passers by, we had heard that Kline wasn’t in view (from people outside, and from texts I was receiving from co-workers after having watched Kline being fed earlier that morning). Cathy started walking around the buildings, while I stayed in the parking lot by Moatfield Dr to keep an eye on Harper. Got a call that Kline was on top of a car by the loading dock in the Harlequin parking lot! A small crowd was beginning to gather, and the number of cars passing by increased. Cathy phoned for advice, Kline got jumpy, came off the car, I attempted to cover him with my towel but he saw an escape route between Cathy and me and took off, very low (to our horror) across the parking lot to Duncan Mill Rd and thankfully gained enough elevation to land on a low ledge at the 240 building. Now we had both Berkley and Kline lower than we would like, but easy to watch. Well, didn’t Beckley attempt to fly off the 220 sign ledge. I should really hand this part of the day’s recap over to Ann, Murray, Marion and the others , as they went after him! I stayed put to keep an eye on Kline because, heaven forbid, we had two on the go at once. It sounded like Beckley sped off as Ann approached, flew low through cars (which is when we heard the hollering and alert that something was happening), circled around the back of the Harlequin building and landed ON TOP OF THE SAME CAR AS HIS BROTHER HAD EARLIER! Marion and Murray managed to capture Beckley from the top of the car. Another collective sigh of relief.
With Harper still in view high up on his roof top, and Beckley in a carrier (safe until release later this evening) we could all relax a bit. Ann did a beverage run, and we could all watch Kline, which is where I said g’night to the crew, who can update further if anything happened later on!
Sally
Evening Watch!
About an hour after Sally left Kline took flight heading towards the Bayview Glenn school and Murray, Mark, Bob and I were right on his tail. He flew quite a long way and it took us a while to find him at the Kraft building low on a retaining wall Mark and Bob managed to catch him up and he was placed in a rescue box and taken to rest with his brother Berkley in the Harlequin building until dark for release.
While we were out rescuing his brother we had a clear view of Harper still on the roof top on Valleyboork Dr.
The release went very well the two boys were put up on the nest building roof together.
was this finally the end of the day? I say nay nay on our way to Harlequin from the Canada Square banding in the morning we had we had to stop off at the Don Mills Amexon nest site to rescue Horton who had gotten blown off the ledge and fluttered to ground 4 or 5 days before he should have even tried to take his first flight. We now had to head off the that site to get him back up on the roof to his family.
by 12:30 AM everyone was finally safe for the evening, it had cooled off and the humidity was gone and my bed was calling me so I went home knowing I would sleep tonight!
What a great crew good job everyone!!!
Marion
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