Photo by Susanne Emond, July 5, 2014.

A couple of photos submitted recently. The first is Susanne’s snapshot of one of the chicks in a dead tree near a Bronson ramp on July 5. This looks like it may be near the tree were one of the females spent a few hours hiding from us on her second day of flying.

The other was submitted today by Zeke Hasaces, who was wondering if it’s normal for this chick to be squawking incessantly.

The answer is yes. It’s probably hungry (when are these chicks not?) and Rowena and Ivanhoe may be withholding meals as they teach their young to hunt and catch their own dinner.

He took the photo through a window, which is why it looks a bit hazy.

Photo by Zeke Hasaces, July 15, 2014.

Well, the 2014 Falcon Watch is officially over — actually, it’s been over for more than a week, but I’m only now getting around to recapping the final two days.

On Friday, July 4, I took the first shift but had little to report by the end of it. John, Chris and Kevin took over at 9 a.m., then Eleanor and Steve came in the afternoon. Steve stayed with me for the first part of the evening shift, the Pauline came at 7. The day was filled with napping, flying, eating, more napping and more flying.

For some reason, the annex roof has proved popular with these chicks, with one or two of them spending long stretches of time there not because they were unable to land on the main building (a common reason for fledglings to end up on the annex), but because they clearly wanted to be there.

Luis followed one of his parents across Bronson and Heron, and flew all the way to the Canada Post building, where it perched for a while before disappearing from our sight. Clover and Clementine, meanwhile, did some synchronized flying closer to home, with dad Ivanhoe keeping watch. One tried and failed to land on a security camera — a fledging rite of passage we’ve witnessed before. The cameras are a favourite perch of the adults, so it’s not surprising to see the chicks wanting to emulate their parents. But it is often funny.

On the annex.

On the annex again.

It was a relatively quiet afternoon for Steve and Eleanor, and much of the same for Pauline and me on the last shift. More, longer, more confident flights, with the chicks usually landing where they planned. All signs pointed to Luis, Clover and Clementine not needing us anymore, so I decided to wrap up the Falcon Watch after one more day.

Not on the annex!

Pauline settles in for the late shift.

On Saturday, July 5, I took the first shift, and noticed a pattern developing: (1) Falcon chicks sit in one place for a while, lulling you into complacency. (2) Parents or random impulses inspire all three chicks to fly at once, causing you to spring into action, then quickly realize you just can’t keep up with an entire family of rather rapid raptors. (3) Watch as the falcons disappear from view, and hope they come back eventually. (4) Wait several minutes or hours until the chicks reappear. (5) Repeat.

Moira and Susanne, with her very funny friend Lucie in tow, took the second shift, and I stayed a while to chat. We watched all three chicks fly west together and disappear from our view. As I headed home by bike, I saw where they were: perched on the roof of the CSEC building on the other side of Bronson, where their conversation was no doubt being closely monitored.

Security breach at CSEC! July 5, 2014.

Reviewing the notes, I see that the morning’s highlights included a Chipping Sparrow tackling a large, orange moth; two men with binoculars dropping by; and Susanne finding one of the chicks perched in a tree near Bronson. So, all in all an eventful shift!

Eleanor and Heather, there for the afternoon shift, reported nothing out of the ordinary (not even among the Chipping Sparrows?). Nor did Pauline, who began the last shift alone because I had the watch the Netherlands-Costa Rica match.

I arrived after the game with Alex, Alix and Bobby in tow. Alex is my husband. Alix and Bobby, with their looooong and TALL bikes, respectively, were staying with us for a couple of nights on their way from Mexico to Toronto. Okay, that’s not a very direct route, but it’s one hell of an adventure. You can read about their bike tour at http://cargoslug.tumblr.com/. Anyway, they’d recently taken an interest in birds, so they were thrilled to see the Peregrines up close through my scope.

As night began falling, I took a few last photos of the local groundhogs — the falcons chicks aren’t the only teenagers at the Data Centre — and of two of the young Peregrines on the annex roof, silhouetted against the setting sun.

It seemed like a fitting finale for a fantastic Falcon Watch.

Groundhogs.

Sunset at the Data Centre.

It was a relief to find all the Peregrine Falcons safe early this morning, after last night’s terrible storm. They all seemed exhausted, though, as there was little movement. I only saw the three chicks fly together once, and not for very long. Mom Rowena offered just a bit of food, so Luis tried briefly to catch his own by chasing some passing passerines. But other that some very short flights, the raptors stayed close to home and out of the surprisingly cold wind.

When Kevin, John and Chris arrived, there was some excitement as an adult brought a whole pigeon. There was more flying throughout the morning, and still more during the afternoon, when Anna and Steve watched the falcons fly for long periods of time. They reported strong and solid landings (for the most part) by all chicks, but also pointed out that one chick didn’t seem to go after the food when the adults dropped it off.

When I arrived for the evening shift with Moira, the chicks had calmed down, and most of the family stayed on the south face of the Data Centre — not surprising, in the wake the previous night’s wild west winds.

Anna and Moira

Three chicks

We watched Luis chase an American Goldfinch over the parking lot. He seemed to get the idea, pursuing the little bird as it flew up, down and around. Eventually, though, the speedy young falcon overtook the Goldfinch and kept going. Imagine being chased by a lion, then watching the lion run right past you!

Ivanhoe, post-hunt

Fresh American Crow feather

It wasn’t the only curious sight of the evening.

Following a food drop, we saw Ivanhoe sporting obvious, colourful evidence of a successful hunt. Someone who did not know what lethal predators Peregrines are might think someone had shot Ivanhoe in the belly.

While circling the building to find a chick (seeing all three at once is becoming increasingly rare), I heard American Crows cawing and looked up to see Ivanhoe chasing them through the trees. One was so frightened that it shed a flight feather, which I floated through the air and landed on the grass.

Later, we saw Rowena flying with a three-foot-long stringy thing — pigeon entrails, perhaps?

My overall impression at this point is that the three chicks can control their flights quite well. As Steve pointed out, they are even starting to adopt their parents’ upward-swoop ledge-landing technique. By converting their horizontal speed into a steep vertical lift, they can use their momentum to reach the ledge from below, rather than approaching from above or having to brake hard for a head-on approach.

Still, as the evening progresses, they seem to lose both their energy and their accuracy. Moira and I saw several missed landings, a few very clumsy ones, and a couple of tumbles from the roof edges on landing. One even did her best Bat Falcon impression, clinging to the southeast corner of the building before flying a wide loop to land on the roof.

The roof landings always strike me as the easy way out, especially when the roof in question is on the annex. So they all still need some practice. The good news is that they have always recovered from their stumbles, and one did manage to land on security cameras several times before ducking back onto the roof.

I wonder where I’ll find the chicks tomorrow.

Balancing act

I was better prepared for the weather tonight, compared to Wednesday night, with rain gear and completely opaque clothing.

We’ve gotten used to dramatic days on the Falcon Watch, trying to track three active fledglings who end up in trees and use windows and walls to brake.

Still, this evening was a different kind of drama, with a sudden, nasty storming hit the Data Centre as I was on my way there by bike. I was on Data Centre Road, crawling up the steep hill toward the turnoff into the parking area, when the skies exploded: First, some lightning and thunder, followed by an unbelievable downpour, hail and tremendous gusts of wind.

Soaked within seconds, I struggled to cover the last few hundred metres. I actually had to get off my bike and walk the last bit because I couldn’t keep my bike upright in the wind. James and Jacqueline proved better at meteorological predictions, and I found them under the building’s shelter, relatively dry.

James and Jacqueline

They reported that Ivanhoe used food to lure the chicks from the roof to the more sheltered ledges as the storm approached. One ended up on the south side, while the other two stayed on the west side. The south was indeed sheltered from the worst of the weather, but the west side was bearing the brunt of the storm. As we spoke, we saw a falcon fly fast and low behind the east side of the building. I hoped it was Rowena, whom they hadn’t seen in a while, but had my doubts, and decided it would be a good idea to check on the chicks in case they had been blown from their perches.

Because I was already soaked through, I was the logical choice for this expedition. I headed out into the rain to check the west side and found no sign of any falcons. Next, I cut through the main lobby — squish, squish, squish and a lot of curious stares due to my waterlogged appearances and, no doubt, my now transparent T-shirt (thankfully, my undergarments remained opaque).

Soaked Peregrine chick

Soaked Anouk

On the east side, I soon found one bedraggled chick — probably the one we saw fly during the worst of the storm — on a low ledge. By the time I circled back to James and Jacqueline, they had spotted another chick on the roof of the annex, and the chick on the south-side ledge was still there.

No shelter on the roof of the annex

As the rain and wind eased up and a rainbow appeared in the sky, first one chick and then the other decided to join their sibling on the south side. The first had little difficulty in reaching the ledge immediately below its sibling’s ledge, but the other had a harder time, and ended up on the roof after a few shorts flights and one crash landing into a wall. Meanwhile, its sibling decided the second-highest ledge was not the place to spend the night, so it flew again. After a few clumsy landing attempts — it can’t be easy to fly with soggy feathers — she, too ended up on the roof.

But she did seem to settled in, so we decided there was little more for us to do. As often happens, returning the rescue box and two-way radios storage inside the building prompted another flight.

The chick that had been more or less safe on the south side was now desperately circling the building and looking for another ledge on which to land. She was not terribly successful and, after a few tumbles, ended up on the larder legdge (were the adults keep their leftovers. While the little pigeon spikes on that ledge couldn’t have been comfortable, at least one of her parents (Rowena, I think) was there too to comfort her.

The summarize the day: All three chicks are flying well, but two of them need more practice with landing, especially if they’re soaked.

Rainbow

Happy Canada Day!

Canada Day at the Data Centre was no holiday! It was hot and sticky for volunteers, but apparently not too hot for Peregrine Falcon chicks to take to the skies.

Rémy took the first shift, and watched the three chicks chase each other through the air. One — probably Luis — disappeared for a long flight that lasted about 20 minutes, but returned to his sisters on the roof by the time I got there.

Susanne soon joined me, and we watched the chicks pose for Canada Day photos above the big logo on the west side of the building. That done, they napped for a while, with a little head or wing occasionally popping into view on the roof.

Windblown

Rick arrived in time for another long chase, this time in pursuit of a parent, followed by more napping. Then Chris and Marie dropped by. More chasing and napping. This meant we had to occasionally make a round of the building to see where the chicks ended up. It’s not exactly a short walk around the Data Centre — maybe a kilometre if you stay back from the buildings to check the roof edges — but today it was exhausting.

Dominique arrived for the afternoon shift in time for another flight display, but by the time the others left, she and I could only find one chick and one adult. Chris texted to say there was a second chick visible on the roof as they cycled away, but we were still down one.

We soon saw chicks and adults flying again, but couldn’t see who was who or where everyone ended up. We did noticed one chick swoop low around to the east side, and when I went to investigate, I saw an adult disappear to the east, and Rowena on the east side of the building. Dominique made another round and reported a pair of falcon-like birds flying around another building in the distance, east of the Data Centre.

We suspected that Luis was on prolonged training flight with Ivanhoe, but I couldn’t find them in my scope, so I couldn’t confirm it was father and son. So we waited, eyes scanning the horizon and all sides of the building in case they flew back to the Data Centre. Nothing for a very long time, except sweat, a few drops of rain, more sweat, and one chick flying from the roof to a ledge on the south side. It preened, then settled in for a nice faceplant. Rowena disappeared from the east side.

July 1, 2014

When Gretchen and Tony arrived for the evening shift, I was horribly overheated and tired, but still worried about two chicks’ whereabouts. Dominique did eventually spot a second falcon chick on the west side of the roof, but we were still down one.

There was another flight, with a chick chasing Ivanhoe west over Bronson Ave. As I followed them with my binoculars, I spotted another falcon on the southeast corner of the Canada Post building. The missing chick? I fetched my scope and, after waiting for the bird to turn around, confirmed that it was Rowena. Rats! (Niice to see her, but I was hoping for one of her offspring.)

After training Tony and Gretchen on Falcon Watch duties, Dominique and I, both exhausted by the heat, went home. I asked our new volunteers to try to find the third chick, and promised to return in a couple of hours.

When I came back around 7:30, they reported three chicks on the roof. Oh happy (Canada) day! Ivanhoe showed up with an unlucky pigeon, which Rowena promptly claimed for herself. Luis, though, wanted his dinner too, so he flew down to his mother’s ledge to join in the feast.

His sisters, perhaps feeling left out but definitely hungry, made their way to the south side of the roof. One (probably Clover) soon flew down and managed to land next to her brother — her first accurate ledge landing — but the other (Clementine, the last to fledge) tried and missed.

Then she tried again, and again, and succeeded! Finally, I thought, the parents are both nearby and all three chicks are on one ledge and will settle in for the night.

Unfortunately, Luis was not quite ready to settle in. Instead, he squabbled with his sister and knocked her right off the ledge! Poor thing. Her sister would have swooped right back up there, I think, but this one had neither the skills nor the energy to get back to the ledge.

After resting up, she tried, but missed, tried and missed again, and ended up doing the bat-cling on the wall before flying off at very, very low altitude toward the annex. From that low roof, she tried one more time to reach her sibling, and again missed.

Then disappeared. Again? Well, this time I found her without too much effort, sitting on a lower ledge on the Data Centre as the last sunlight faded away. And that’s where I left her for the night.