Sunday June 29th at William Osler
June 29, 2014 - Etobicoke - William Osler
Tracy Simpson Reports:
Today Bruce started the watch allowing me a moment to sleep in which I was so grateful for after getting home from Renfrew so late. Bruce had a feeding come in for the morning which of course had the whole family of fliers really revved up and while there was some activity in the morning, it was over quickly and on to more important napping and preening jobs. The day went by rather quickly as we watched the juveniles exploring the territory and practicing their flights. It was to be evening though that the real flight show began.
All four juveniles were playing tag with Hurricane and generally being a nuisance to the parents. The boys would gang up on Red and had her screaming her dissatisfaction with this until Chessie would come in and break it up. Yellow would then take the sneaky approach and fly in behind white and give him a chase or two. It was around the evening feed that Red took to the air and made for the tower. By this time I was joined by Winston and we were watching as she veered off her landing and made a return flight towards the nest ledge. She didn’t have the altitude to make the ledge and so she swung back around the building and out to the north. She circled, gained some altitude and tried again for the nest ledge. Nope. Position all wrong. Now she went back out and circled again but she was too low now and made for the low medical centre roof. She was going to land but changed her mind and headed back towards the main building. She had been in the air now over 2 minutes and was feeling it. She landed on the 5th floor window ledge and took a break. It wasn’t long before she was in the air again and making excellent decisions even though they weren’t getting her what she wanted. Again she ended up on a window ledge on the north side. Flight number three, now she’s really tuckered, but she managed to get back around to the east side. She tried to land on the hydro wires but she’s a tank and that wasn’t going to work. She ended up on the east side on a window ledge right below the nest ledge. There she stayed and ran the ledge several times before settling in for the night.
While Red may have ended up on a window ledge, she is a flighted juvenile. She will have no trouble getting back up to the ledge come morning once she has had a chance to rest but just in case, we will be continuing the watch for Monday and Tuesday. Thanks to Bruce and Winston who were out with me today. The flights were awesome to watch!!