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