Finally captured an full image from the webcam. Look closely you can see one little head tucked in between looking at the camera.
Saturday May 17th - 2014
I spent some time at Mount Sinai. I arrived just before 10:00am.
On my arrival I had the female flying south on University Ave heading towards the Zurich building, she then turned east and out of sight. The male appeared and landed on the cubby holes on the south side of Mount Sinai.
I waited, thinking they were in the hunting mode. The female reappeared and landed on the south east corner of the hospital, the male then fly up to her and copulation was seen. He flew off, and she joined him in flight. They flew circles over University Ave at Gerrard St. gaining height and drifting eastward towards Yonge St. They were so high I needed binoculars to track them as they drifted to the southeast, and out of my sight.
At no time did either of the adults pay any attention to the 2nd ledge, (or any of the ledges for all that matter). I left the area an hour later, with only the male in view. He had returned and was on the 6th ledge.
This may be an indication that either there were never any eggs, or the eggs have failed. We will never know, since we are not able to visibly see that particular area of the east side.
Observations will continue.
It was very windy in the corner where Haven was covering her babies and eggs. Still two babies and two eggs. She had difficulty keeping the babies underneath her. They kept *tumbling out* and Haven would wriggle and tuck them under again.
Eventually dad appeared on the ledge, no food, but he literally begged her to let him sit on the eggs. First he made his usual chupping and when Haven did not respond to that his call, it changed to something softer and finally he whined!! A tiny little *weeeeeet* sound !
Haven finally left, and I could clearly see the two eggs and the babies. I know why Haven was reluctant to let him sit. Not only because there were still 2 eggs but because after all he is a new mate!!!! Yes a new mate with the band number 12 over Y and that is not Stormin. After checking the banding data base, it turns out to be Malik , a peregrine hatched in 2010 at the 18 King St. nest,,, a son of Windwistler and Erin.
We’re not sure when Stormin was displaced and though we will miss him, Malik comes from strong stock from one of Canada’s most prolific male peregrines, Windwhistler, who has over 100 offspring (that we know about) to his credit and is now a great, great grandfather.
Malik looked at the little white fluff balls with wide open mouths, thought about them and decided that he KNEW he had to sit on the eggs. I don’t think he was too sure of what to do with the babies and he didn’t actually cover them. They were pressed right against his chest. He is just a little too small to cover both the eggs and babies. About seven minutes later Haven returned, rolled the eggs into place, got comfortable on them and then proceeded to nudge the babies under her.
Lyn
This morning I captured a few images of Erin feeding the first hatchling at King Street as it sat among what looks like three eggs still intact. Another hatch should be coming at any moment so keep your eyes on the camera!
This morning the four chicks at the Toronto Sheraton Hotel were enjoying a bit of breakfast on camera. Three of the chicks, the oldest, are getting much bigger and the last hatch is just so cute and catching up fast. All four were fed a hearty meal before being tucked back in under Rhea Mae.
Yesterday morning as I sat at the MEC watch I checked the cameras and found Jack attempting a feeding of his family that was both adorable and pretty smart. O’Connor was brooding the four chicks when Jack arrived with food. She absolutely refused to move and covered them from view. Jack positioned himself so he could get access to at least two of the four chicks and started to pull off small pieces. First piece went to O’Connor, the biggest “chick” of the bunch. While she was eating that piece, Jack then managed to sneak one in to the chick closest to him! He fed for about a minute or two before he left and the camera screen captures I took were adorable. Looks like as long as Jack treats O’Connor as a “fifth huge chick” he’ll get some feeding time in after all!
Friday May 16th - 2014
I finally got a chance to get back to the Scarborough nest site today on Milner to check up on Rueben and Linn’s progress and the status on their four eggs. Upon our arrival, Rueben was observed on the nest ledge flashing and Linn was nowhere to found, (at least when we first arrived)! I was able to see three eggs on the nest ledge. After a few quick photos of Rueben to confirm his identity via his leg band numbers, we made our way down the isle way to the exit door, and we then met Linn.
Out of know where, Linn appeared, and I can tell you that she was not exactly happy to see us. She was quickly joined by Rueben where they roosted briefly on a small communications in front of us allowing me an opportunity and then asked us to leave. Well, Ok, they encouraged us to leave, and leave quickly we did.
In a matter of seconds, we were stopped and dived upon more that half dozen times by both adults and pretty glad that we were able to exit as soon as we did. After reviewing some of the photos later in the evening, I was able to re-confirm via her leg band numbers that Linn is still the resident adult female on site.
Finger crossed, they will have a hatch in a few days.
Stay tuned…………….
Friday May 16th - 2014
While I don’t have allot of the details, I do have some of the highlights of little Masons activities today as reported by Grace and Bruce from todays fledge watch.
While he was really not very active for the most parts of the day with Grace reporting that he spent all day on the top of MEC #3, he certainly made up for it this evening and had Bruce running around to keep his eye on him, as he made at least four separate flights that included several prolonged short flights with altitude gains and decent landings, most of which had him landing and ending up on the upper roof top retaining walls.
And the best part, no more window bonking as he did two days ago when poor Tracy reported that she watched in horror as he flew into the windows of all three buildings before finally coming to the ground and in need of rescue. It might appear the Mason might have learned about the dangers of windows. Unlike many other birds, peregrines do learn from their mistakes, and the urban produced peregrines have a slight advantage when it comes to urban living.
We actually hope that the young fledglings do some “window bonking” when they take their first flights, as they are usually still pretty slow and don’t usually collide with the windows that they run into at any great speed. If they don’t hurt or kill themselves during their first few run-ins with windows, they do in fact remember the negative experience and don’t usually fly into them again.
Sadly, if they don’t hit any windows when they are much slower in their first few flights, and end up hitting them later in their flights when they are far more confident (but still not really skilled especially with that of putting on the breaks), their air speed is much greater, and they get careless and very over confident. Collisions with windows at this stage usually ends up in serious injuries and mortality.
Think of the young teenager, just having got their driver licence and the first time with the keys to the family car,,, only this time, the family car is a Ferrari.
Speed does kill as we have seen only tooo often with the young fledgling peregrines during their first dozen flights before they develop the flight skills and other valuable experience!
While Mason is far from being out of harms way, it does appear the he had already learned some valuable lesions thus far, increasing his chances of survival.
- Being on/at the ground level is dangerous, foreign and a very scary place, its no wonder why I’ve never seen mom and dad go there,, in addition, they won’t come my rescue at ground level,
- Humans are at ground level and very scary indeed, they keep grabbing and man handling him - (even mom and dad doesn’t do that), and I really HATE to be man handled!!!
- Windows on the sides of buildings are very hard and cause a great deal of pain when I fly into these things, stay the heck away from these terrible things,
- ending up behind glass balconies are also impregnable, and you get trapped,,, stay away from these places.
And the lessons will continue….
May 15th - 2014
We’re happy to announce that a banding date has been set and booked for May 23rd at 10am!
Stay tuned for further updates.
After yesterday’s activities and the weather this morning Haven stuck to the scrape and protected the eggs and the two hatchlings. She was restless and kept on changing position, ensuring everything was kept warm and covered. Stormin appeared on the ledge and I think he was asked to fetch food. He reappeared much later and Haven grabbed the food parcel from him. She had a nibble herself and then began to feed the babies. Just amazing to watch. She turns her head to present the food to the little ones so that they can just close their mouths and swallow!
Once they were fed Haven ate the rest and settled back on the two eggs and two babies.
Here is a special treat from Lyn for our falcon friends -links to the feeding of the Canada Square babies on video
http://youtu.be/RUayZagoJTc
http://youtu.be/T4U-XLGmS44
http://youtu.be/Ghj4WHtQTi4
http://youtu.be/rGDvLd4UAeM
http://youtu.be/3H0YdZWYdhQ
http://youtu.be/KpUfXLTzfH4
http://youtu.be/fqu-lOJ9KmU
http://youtu.be/0Gyyo5FA7L0
http://youtu.be/0Gyyo5FA7L0
Mom eating
http://youtu.be/VChzJzDaCEw
Lyn