Rochester: Seneca's day

Finally this morning shortly after 6 Seneca left the nestbox and around noon she left the ledge beside the nestbox as well. She flapped her wings and gone she was. Wonder if she fledged, could not see her in the playpen.
The nestbox is empty, they have gone. But we will keep on following them of course!








A lot has happened in the past 24 hours. Diamante did fledge and Quest as well. Zephyr showed off his rapidly improving flight skills. Mariah was up on the High Falls stack keeping an eye on something. Quest was on a low building. She alternated between hopping around and letting the breeze fill her outstretched wings. She finally took off and did fly quite well.
The watchers found Suzie B on the ground. Not wounded fortunately. But she manouvred herself in a dangerous position so the watchers decided to get her out of there. And so they did.
She turned out to be tired, so they decided to release her from one of the Kodak buildings.
Not long afterwards they saw her fly away. So she was and is OK.

To read the whole story please go to Peregrinations of Jim Pisello. His pictures of the flegdlings are awesome!
http://marchlords.com/birdblog/2008/06/exciting-evening-for-girls.html

And check Imprints:
http://www.rfalconcam.com/falconwatch/

Derby sunshine

Fortunately after the cloudy and foggy yesterday, today the sun was shining. And the juvies for sure did a lot of catching up. Together with the falcon and tiercel they have been active all day. So a lot of beautiful shots!
Highlights of the day:

In the early morning before 7 the tiercel entered the scrape and started scraping a bowl. ( Slideshow 1) The falcon however could not be persuaded to get down from the pud to join him. She was enjoying the early morning sunshine. But was disturbed by a juvie begging for food, so she took off immediately. Just look at her face when she sees him.
The parents get really annoyed by the aggresive way of begging. Even though these parents provide in a lot of food. I have seen how juvies not even wake up when one of the parents land on the pud. Their crops are very full!









At 10:30 the tiercel delivered a big prey to 2 juvies who where sleeping in the scrape. A third one was sunbathing on top of the sundaymorning Cathedral.The two in the scrape pull the prey to the richts side of the nestbox, out of sight.









One of the juvies is getting the prey back to the left side of the nestbox around 13:00. The other is still there but waits. Is this Tiddler, real Tiddler behaviour, this waiting. One juvie takes off.
Arounf half 3 one of the adults comes in the nestbox with fresh prey and starts plucking. Within minuts joined by 2 juvies. The third one still up the pud. The afternoon passes without highlights









Finally all 4 at the same time, 3 on top of the pud, one in the scrape. I have been wondering why we never see the 4 at once.
Around 7 2 juvies in the nestbox enjoying eachother and having fun. Juvies love to watch eachother and are very interested in the other one. They love to touch and play. Finally they leave and land on top.
The tiercel lands in the nestbox and starts again digging a bowl in the scrape and leaves.
One of the juvies enters the box, on top 2 juvies are very clearly visable, when the wing of the fourth juvie moves. 4! At last.

Read all about the Derby Peregrines on the Derby Blog:
http://derbyperegrines.blogspot.com/

And do visit the Derby Photo Blog of Jon Salloway. He has amazing photo's of the Derby peregrines.:
http://derby-peregrines.blogspot.com/

De Mortel

Columbus Ohio: do we have a fledge?

Video by Skygirlblue












Video by Skygirlblue



The juvies are hopflapping on the ledge. But are there still 4? It is hard to check. We have to wait for fledge reports coming in.

Brighton Sussex Heights: sad news

Male 25



Female 23


Sadly I have to tell you that one of the 4 juvies has been lost. One of the adults was seen doing a bit of lifeskills training, flying around by the top of Sussex Heights clutching a food carcass, being pursued by three rather than four very vociferous youngsters. Over the last weekend no more than five peregrines up on the building have been seen at any given time and on checking through the daily coverage from the nest box birds 22, 23 and 25 have been indentified but there has been no sign of 24, one of the young males.

Egg-Hatch-Fledgetable

The last nestsites of the table where Rochester and Columbus Ohio. In Rochester 4 of teh 5 juvies have fledged. In Columbus Ohio as far as I know none have fledged yet but i have my doubts about that. Hard to check.
Anyway the table looks like this:




A lot of data, new facts about behaviour etc. are a real treasure for me. Although it is quite a job it has been worth it. But we're not yet at the end of the season. With fledging for the juvies life has just begun. The time in the scrape is just to grow and get ready to start life. It is great that at so many nestsites falconwatchers are daily watching, observing and photographing the juvies to whom we all got so attached. So reports will continue.
And in a few weeks the season in Australia will begin. I'm looking forward this. Last year was great with little Aussie at the Brisbane scrape and the 2 juvies at Alcoa.

Xcell Allen S. King Plant

Nijmegen

Xcell Black Dog