!!! The three faces of mischief and full crops just in time for bed!
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.
