!!! Really Dear I Was Abducted By Aliens!!!!!
December 01, 2013 - Toronto - Canada Square Building - Yonge and Eglinton
Marion Nash Reports:
A male peregrine was found on the ground in a parking lot in the Scarborough by a resident of the Thorncliff Park area unable to fly and drooping a wing.
The gentleman who found him had to chase him around the parking lot for 40 minutes before he was able to catch him up. I know from experience just how fast a peregrine can run and even hurt they can sometimes make some short low flights in effort to get away from you.
The man brought Stormin home and started calling everyone he could think of to get help for him as soon as possible. After several unsuccessful calls for help he was able to speak to Chris Risley of the Ontario Ministry of Natural resources Peterborough head office who called us right away with the information on an injured Peregrine needing our help and a band number 30 over Y who I knew was Stormin.
I called the man immediately and set up a time to pick Stormin up, despatched Mark Nash of The Canadian Peregrine Foundation to head out to collect what I thought was a very hurt Stormin. Called our Avian vet who was on stand by to help.
We were not able to get to Stormin until after 5:00 PM as the man who had him was out of town so later that day Mark did a quick examination of Stormin’s wings and body and he seemed OK no obvious break, no blood anywhere, very alert and very feisty.
As it turns out there were no serious injuries at all perhaps just a little bruising from a collision or he may have wondered too close to the Don Mills and Eglinton Peregrine nest territory and was put down by one or both of the resident adults ( that are very much still on territory) there. We will never know for sure.
Stormin spent 3 days at the CPF Raptor Center for close 24 hour observation and a little rest and lots of quail and seemed no worse for where. We were able to monitor his flight abilities and he was doing just fine.
While he was with us Bruce Masse and Lyn Thompson long time CPF volunteers went out to check on Haven Stormin’s mate to make sure she was still there and had not been part of whatever trouble Stormin had gotten into. They found her still on site and just fine but did say the she seemed to be looking for Stormin.
Since he checked out fine, was eating food and processing normally and flew up to perches and around in his pen at CPF it was decided to get him back to his nest territory Canada square and his mate Haven right away.
We set a time of 2:30 Today Sunday for his release and called CPF volunteers Lyn Thompson and Mark Thompson ( no they are not related) to meet us there to assist with the release.
Lyn got there before us and set everything up with our friends at Security at the Canada Square building nest site to get us all up to the nest ledge area to release the bird, we were then met by Mark Thompson one of our volunteers and a reporter from CTV and up we went to the nest area on the 15th floor.
Mark Nash extracted him from the rescue carrier looked him over one more time and took him out to the balcony and slowly set him down in the corner and backed away.
Stormin jumped up to the balcony ledge had a poop and a big shake and off he flew very strong hooked around the building out of site. So far so good.
We all trooped back down to ground level and headed out to our cars in the parking area brought out the binoculars and started looking for Stormin to see where he ended up. Within minutes he flew over out heads and landed back on his nest and was met in the air by Haven who obviously was happy to see him back. The both flew over to the TVO building to their usual roosting spots vocalized a bit ( I guess he was explaining his absence) then settled down like nothing had ever happened.
A very BIG thank you goes out for the efforts of the nice man ( who does not want to be mentioned) who rescued Stormin in his time of distress and to Chris from The Ministry of Natural Resources for getting to us right away and lastly but not least to Lyn and Mark for spending their Sunday afternoon on another successful peregrine rescue release.
Mark and Marion Nash
