!!! Mason released un-injured back to the nest buildng rooftop.
May 19, 2014 - Mississauga - Executive Centre
Mark Nash Reports:
May 19th - 2014
Monday evening report:
Well, once again we find ourselves meeting face to face! Responding to Tracy’s call, (and after a short consultation), we agreed to hold Mason for a short period of time for observations due to his collision with the glass again and a very hard contact with the ground. This with the benefits of being able to release him under the cover of darkness allowing me to get off the upper roof elevation after his release and not scaring him into a panic flight that could cause him to get into something even worse.
As many of you might know, peregrines don’t see particularly well in the dark at all, and as such, they are very vulnerable from other night predators, (especially from that of the Great horned owls that are out on the prowl after dark) and they know it!
Peregrines, among some other raptors that also don’t see well in the darkness, instinctually go into self protection mode in the dark, with their only real means of defense is to remain both quiet and motionless to avoid detection,,, - (thus the use of falconry hoods, darkened carriers, black rescue towels and darkened rooms for hold overs). Its not that peregrines like the dark, so much as they go into this instinctual self protection mode and remain quiet and still. Also a good stress free environment to settle the birds down when we’re looking to observe them for obvious injuries and traumas.
The darkened roof-top basically achieves the same conditions and allows us to release the bird safely without it bolting into a panic flight before you can safely get off the roof and out of its sight. It also allows us to release a rescued fledgling to the same roof top where they might be other fledglings and scaring them off these elevations prematurely.
Over the years, we have developed a very safe way to release a peregrine in this fashion with the use of a black towel. This is a procedure that allows us to both release the bird in safe fashion and also allows us to take the rescue carrier back off the roof with us upon its release, thus giving us the luxury of not having to return to the roof a second time to retrieve the rescue carrier (or leave debris on the various rooftops after a release). Some of these roof-top are very windy places, easily able to blow rescue carriers off the roof itself, (and we don’t want to go there)!!
In addition, this also prevents any further un-necessary human activity to retrieve carriers at these elevations that may cause a fledgling to panic into premature flight.
While this seems trivial, remember that over the years, we have had fledge watches when we have had three rescued fledglings all in their separate carriers that all came down during a single fledge watch shift!
So how do you release three fledglings safely back to the roof without forcing them into a panic flight? Develop a safe procedure and protocol! We’ve got plenty of experience over the past 17 years, (and the CPF rescued fledglings to date are now well over 200 rescues), and counting.
So back to Mason, successfully released back to the nest building roof without incident.
Stay tuned……….