June 21, 2011 - Toronto - Don Mills
Mark Nash Reports:
Banding Day!
June 21st -2011
We must apologize for the delays in posting the great news of the banding event that took place on Tuesday June 21st as we have all been busy in the streets with ongoing fledge watches and many rescues in the streets at several other nest sites. We are all putting in some very long days and late nights in the streets as some of the other fledglings just can’t stay of trouble and have found themselves at ground level in the streets needing our assistance to get back to the nest ledges.
We are still awaiting many of the photos to come in that were took during banding event and its going to take us a little more time to assemble all of the great photos and our notes to be able to do a complete posting of the days events.
This is a stressful time for us all with five different fledge watches on the go from the William Osler nest site in the north west end of Etobicoke to downtown Toronto to the extreme east end of Toronto in Scarborough, and several other watches in between. Its always very difficult to handle on-going fledge watches with overlapping bandings going on at the same time.
Please bear with us, as always, our first priority is with the young fledglings in the streets that are all at huge risks while on the ground unable to get back to their safety of their parents and the nest ledges.
In the interim, the young Don Mills hatchling of Quest and Kendal weighted in at a healthy 735 grams, banded today at 21 days old with a Black 54 over X band,, clearly identified as a female,, named Harlequin!
With several hundred people in attendance, including the Honourable Linda Jeffrey, Ontario Minister of the of Natural Resources, Donna Hayes the president and CEO of Harlequin, Harlequin staff, press and media, many CPF corporate sponsors and partners, our good friends from Rochester New York and many other invitees, along with CPF volunteers in attendance, it was an incredibly successful banding day!
Please stay tuned,, as there is much more to come with regards to the banding event!!
Posted on June 23, 2011 10:55 am
June 22, 2011 - Scarborough - Yellow Pages
Mark Nash Reports:
No action yet!
June 22nd -2011
Kathy reports today that all three hatchlings are still on the nest ledge and although there is some flapping going on with at one of the older hatchlings, they are all still hanging tight to the nest ledge with not much eagerness to take their first flights. Both Linn and Rueben (the resident adults) are still closely attending and now starting to tease the the three hatchlings more often throughout the day trying to encourage them to start taking their first flights. By watch close, (and very consistent of this nest site), all three chicks seem to turn in long before darkness and disappear put of our view into the nest ledge and are inactive until darkness. After consulting with Marion who has spent hundreds of hours out here on the fledge watches in the previous years, it appears that this nest site is most unusual compared to many of the other nest sites that we have been monitoring and doing fledge watches over the past 17 years, in that the hatchlings historically become very inactive much earlier in the evening that many of the other nest site juveniles. By 8:37pm, and once again, all three hatchlings were tucked down in on the nest ledge out of our sight and down for the night.
Stay tuned……
Posted on June 23, 2011 10:24 am
June 21, 2011 - Scarborough - Yellow Pages
Mark Nash Reports:
June 21st-2011
A visit to the Scarborough Yellow Pages nest site this afternoon after the Don Mills banding to find all three hatchlings looking very good and almost ready to take their first flights. With all three of the chicks still on the nest ledge watching both of their parents very closely as they soared around in the winds above the nest building.
Upon my arrival, I tooo witnessed the incredible ariel display by both parents that lasted some 17 plus minutes as they soared around the top of the nest building and what was so spectacular, neither of the adults flapped their wings during the entire time. Utilizing the constant breezes, the adults did more than a dozen figure-eights and oval circles as they dove and stooped the three hatchling in the nest ledge and circled the building.
While spectacular to see, (and an obvious action on behalf of the parents to show the kids just how easy flight can be), I can only hope that the three hatchlings are reading more into the demonstration! As unskilled juveniles, (and still non-flighted), lets hope that they don’t believe that flight also needs allot of flapping to stay aloft!!
At around 6:30 pm, mom made a spectacular stoop on a pigeon hitting it mid air and in the same motion retrieved it before it dropped to the ground. She flew off to a roof top of a tall hi-rise building to the west and I watched her pluck it and removed what seemed to be hundreds of feathers as they swirled around in the wind and floated all over the horizon.
She finally flew over to the nest ledge and proceeded to beak feed the three chicks on waiting patiently on the nest ledge. A very tender moment indeed, and one that lasted some 20 minutes while I snapped hundreds of photos from my ground observation.
One of the hatchlings was waiting on the upper rim of the nest ledge, while a second hatchling was observed popping up and down from the nest ledge to the upper rim returning back to the interior of the nest ledge, and the third hatchling refused to jump up to the nest ledge rim seemingly unsure of the upper nest ledge position. The resident adult female beak fed them in their standing positions and all of the hatchlings seemed to get their full share.
Just as quickly as it happen, the adult female flew off the nest ledge with a small piece landing on the ledge directly above the nest ledge and proceeded to eat the small leftover. All three hatchlings disappeared to from the nest ledge rim down into the nest ledge and was never seen again during this watch. By 9pm, and now almost dark given the heavy over cast and clouds, I closed down the watch for the day and proceeded to the downtown Toronto King Street fledge watch to help Marion and Linda with their watch close down, and do the final examination and release of the young fledgling Cinnamon back to the Toronto Sheraton hotel nest site.
Posted on June 23, 2011 10:05 am
June 23, 2011 - Etobicoke - Sun Life Centre
Kathy Reports:
I spotted all three juvies up on the rooftop this morning with mom. All are doing well and staying up high. Lots of playing tag and flying around with mom. Jack has gone back to sporadic visits, no doubt as his other offspring is due to fledge any day now at his other site. Hopefully the little one there has a safe first flight.
It’s easy to keep tabs on them now as they every time they fly they seem to scream their heads off and let everyone know they’re taking to the skies!
Posted on June 23, 2011 10:05 am
June 22, 2011 - Toronto - King Street
Marion Nash Reports:
Paul started todays watch this morning and found Kenya where we left him yesterday evening I joined him at noon and he was still there with the heavy fog and rain he stayed put all day. He was fed at least twice that we saw and then jumped down to the nest ledge early and went to bed just as the fog started to get heavier Janine and Mark helped us close the evening shift keeping an eye on him while we spot checked his sister.
Sister Sakura had a couple flights but otherwise she was on the King Edward most of the day and then went to 1 Toronto to spent the night.
Posted on June 23, 2011 9:52 am
June 22, 2011 - Port Colborne - ADM Mill
Doug Garbutt Reports:
It’s hard to keep tabs on what’s going on here but today I was able to see all 4 falcons (2 young, 2 adults) at the same time, so I know 100% for sure that both young ones are still alive & active. On my lunch break yesterday I thought I would go up to the 6th floor roof to try & view the young from a spot below where they hang out. Mom did not like my presense & dive bombed me & came about 5 feet away so I promptly left the area. The adults are always watching the young & taking very good care of them. So far, so good. Let’s hope it continues as we have had bad luck here the last two years. I’ll try to get some pics for my next post.
Posted on June 22, 2011 9:53 pm
June 22, 2011 - Toronto - Sheraton Centre
Linda Woods Reports:
Kate is approximately 45 days old today and still unfledged. She is shedding more of the white. Sunshine was chasing Rhea Mae this evening, probably screaming for food. Cinnamon is content to stay at home this evening, after his big ordeal. Food went into the ledge around 8p.m. Rhea Mae went back to the nest ledge around 8:30 and was feeding but could see who was being fed. A quick nest ledge check again, Kate had settled under the camera, Cinnamon was moving about and finally went next to Kate. Sunshine took off in the fog, probably to the Sheraton letters above the nest ledge. We closed the watch at 8:45 p.m. Fog has moved in and we could no longer see either the nest ledge or the neighbouring buildings. It was a misty day today with light rain, drizzle and more fog.
Posted on June 22, 2011 9:36 pm
June 22, 2011 - Windsor - Ambassador Bridge
Dennis Patrick Reports:
At first I wasn’t sure how the nest box would work for the two of them. Well, after seeing how much they are enjoying it, I’m very happy we have that one now for the Peregrine Falcons. Thank You to CPF for bringing it when they came to do the banded and the Bridge Company for allowing it to happen. We were there at 6:15 A.M., both Lady Gaga and Spitfire were very active, jumping up and down from the nest box to the ledge and then the same thing over and over. They were busy preening themselves as well. Both Freddie and Voltaire came in with food, actually Lady Gaga was mantling over the food at first, when the four of them were all there together it was hard to see who was who. When we left at 7:35 A.M. both Lady Gaga and Spitfire were standing close to each other on the nest box, Freddie and Voltaire were both on the pipe. Stay tune for more updates.
Gwen & Dennis
Site Co-ordinators for CPF
Posted on June 22, 2011 10:07 am
June 22, 2011 - Etobicoke - Sun Life Centre
Kathy Reports:
I received some FANTASTIC news via Mark Nash in my inbox this morning!! He received an email from Barb Baldinger, a peregrine falcon volunteer from MNDR in SE Michigan, asking for help in identifying a female with black bands 83 over X! She is our Screech, born to Angel and Jack in 2008! She was loud and proud and weighed almost 1000 grams at banding.
Barb informs us that she and a male named Zeus (Hatched 2009 at LTV Steel in Cleveland, Ohio; black/red 73/B) have fledged three young from a nest box on the tower of the AT&T Building in Pontiac, MI.
I am thrilled beyond measure! Thank you so much Barb for passing this news on to us!
This is not only a success for us personally but for the peregrine falcon reintroduction program itself. Screech’s offspring can now be traced back 5 generations back to 1999 when a female named Run Around Sue was found wandering on a bridge in Wilkes-Barre, PA. That female arrived in Hamilton 3 years later and is still the resident female there now named Madame X.
One of her offspring with her mate Percy in 2001 was Sal, who at 1 year of age was the resident male at Mississauga MEC and in that year of 2002 - our resident male Jack was produced! (which makes him 9 years old this year!!) Screech was born to Jack and Angel in 2008 and now in 2011 she has produced 3 offspring of her own. This is the sign of a healthy and genetically strong line and this is how we measure the real success of the program!
Posted on June 22, 2011 6:03 am
June 21, 2011 - Toronto - King Street
Marion Nash Reports:
Sakura took several flights today 17 of them wow! This one is a great flyer!
Kenya on the other hand took 1 flight in the afternoon from the King Edward where we left him the night before to the office tower just behind the Hotel on wellington where he stayed until 8pm then took flight trying to get to the upper level to the same building but missed only by a foot.
He then fluttered down to about the 5th floor about a 20 floor drop before he hooked around to head south where he made a brief stop on top of the St Lawrence Centre and in one more unsuccessful attempt to gain altitude he went still further south to land on the roof of the old spaghetti Factory roof which was too low for comfort.
There were to tall towers on both sides and I knew he was going to end up on the ground in the alley in the back where he was or perhaps on the street in the Esplanade or as I was warned by restaurant workers eaten by the raccoons.
I called Mark who was on his way downtown to release one of the fledglings from the Sheraton Hotel who had been rescued by Linda Woods earlier and asked to stop by and help us get Kenya down from there before he slipped off into the dumpster 8 feet below or became raccoon dinner. Mark had a net with a telescopic pole so I thought if he could get access to the condo terrace nest door just feet from Kenya we could save him from this dark scary alley and perhaps a nasty fate.
Mark was there is about 15 minutes and into the security of the building who contact the resident who’s terrace we needed to go onto to and within minutes he was back with Kenya and a few new bite marks on his arms but Kenya was fine.
We got him back home to the 18 King st. roof where we left him safe and sound and headed off to the Sheraton to release Cinnamon who as I mentioned had been rescued earlier by Linda.
Posted on June 22, 2011 2:32 am
