Not long now!!
June 09, 2016 - Kitchener - CTV-Bell Media Tower
Lisa Reh Reports:
We had a great turnout tonight for our kick-off of the fledge watch on Tuesday, June 7th.!! Thank you all for coming and welcome new watchers!!! We will be diligently watching for the next 2 weeks while these young falcons learn to fly. A report from CTV on Tuesday, noted that one of the juveniles had jumped off of the nest box onto the tower platform! All 4 were in the nest box at the training session, with one hanging out on the balcony the entire time. One of the adults made an appearance too!
On June 8th, the fledge watch started at 7:00 a.m. There wasn’t much activity but all were accounted for including Caster and Mystery. One of the parents was perched on the hospital tower antenna and the other on the King’s Tower antenna. There’s a lot of activity in the nest box. The juveniles flap their wings vigourously, run back and forth, and bicker over leftover food tidbits. The adults have not always been preparing the meals, so the young ones are learning how to prepare their meals themselves. All are displaying mantling behavior when they tuck in to the food. At 3:00 p.m., one of the adults was perched on the platform above the nest box while one of the juveniles complained loudly. One of the chicks seemed to be raring to go a number of times, with lots of wing flaps. At 3:30, one of the adults was flying wide circles around the territory returning to the top platform which it did several times.
All 4 babies were accounted for on the morning watch on June 9th. The babies were much more vocal than the day before. Mystery was sitting on the antenna to the east of the CTV tower from about 6:30 to 7:00 a.m. When Caster showed up, Mystery left. Caster sat on the edge of the upper platform of the tower. A number of watchers came out between mid morning and 2:00 p.m. Mystery came in a few times with some food drops and at one point it looked like little Tenor was going to go, but he backed out.
It was a pretty uneventful afternoon from 2:45 until just before 4:00 when one of the adults appeared. The adult landed and the flew back off again. Two of the juveniles remained on the balcony ledge looking out. Just before 5:00 all 4 were out on the balcony of the nest box when Mystery brought dinner. At 8:15 p.m. the adults were observed switching off and one brought in a small food drop. One of the adults flew off as the other stayed up close to the disc at the top of the tower watching over the youngsters. One of the chicks spent most of this time out on the balcony, while the others had a feed inside the nest box. All 4 were accounted for at 8:45 p.m. It won’t be long now!!!
Photos courtesy of Karen von Knobloch.
