Toronto - Don Mills

So this really is goodbye… She was fierce, beautiful, magnificent, tough as nails, a warrior, a great mom to 40 chicks! She came to Don Mills in 2011, Kendall in tow. The people at the nest building imbraced them and so did the people across the street - Harlequin! Up until they left (2018 I believe??) we had some wonderful eyes and ears (Sally would hear that juvie scream as they raced between the buildings, chasing Mom or Dad or each other) on our girl.  And Quest never left. The guys would leave, sometimes months at a time it seemed but she stayed to protect her territory. And they always returned, until they couldn’t. She always ruled the roost… She would talk up a storm to her mates(5), and they would do as she told them lol. That was our girl.  She would give them short stints on the eggs, or let them give a mouthful or 2 to the kids, then that was it! Her job!  How many times I would laugh at poor Kendall or Mystery… They would bring in the food, try to get it to the kids but she’d snatch it from them.. The look on their faces! Then she would lovingly feed them, talking to them. Beautiful.  She never liked us banding her chicks… Our climbers got an earful and sometimes a little smack! And then when we would rescue the fledglings… She watched us. And this year she showed us that she knew we’d return them… A favourite moment, watching her up on that roof, looking down, back and forth, for Valkyrie to be returned… Mark was there… Why wasn’t her boy back yet lol.. As Sally said, she’d been studying us all these years just as we had been studying her .

I loved looking back at the pictures of her early days… How the nest ledge changed… And Quest just rolled with it… Nothing seemed to phase her.

For Ramesh, Mano, Carolyn, Bob, everyone at CPF, Bruce, Kathy, Tracy (everyone has watched her) , our photographers, Ted and Rob, and especially Mark and Marion, Sally & I , it won’t be the same. She’s touched all of us.

Quest, we are going to miss you so much. Fly high our warrior queen