!!! Burlington fledglings all high and going strong! Well, at least for fledglings! :-)
June 12, 2015 - Burlington - Lift Bridge
Mark Nash Reports:
June 11th - 2015
A huge thank you to Rob who was able to get down to the Burlington lift bridge to see what’s happening with the three fledglings and get back to us with some updates and news.
Some great news to report in that it appears that the three fledglings are all still very visible and holding their altitude!!
It was quite tense for us all having been so short of resources and manpower to cover this and many other fledge watches this year, and with all of the construction and restricted accesses, overlapping bandings and other ongoing fledge watches and demanding work schedules outside of the foundation,, we were all expecting the worst.
Rob writes:
We went down to the lift bridge tonight to do some watching. Both adults were quickly found, but no juvies. We listened for annoyed small birds, and did a search of what areas we could see, but found nothing for a while. After some time I heard some faint calling, and eventually one juvie popped up on the top of the Hamilton tower (was probably up there the whole time), and it made some short flights. Then the next juvie appeared, and finally we saw the third as it was starting to get lower light. All three made strong flights, maintaining altitude, and at least two seemed able to make good landings on the upper tower roof edges, and in the hydro towers.
They did some screaming for food, and the male did make one trip out for a while, but did not return with anything, and they were all quiet and tucked about when we left (only one visible to us though).
It looks like basic flight skills are good at this point, first test passed. I hope they don’t run into any more trouble….as they get more adventurous, the next stage of risk comes on, but for now they seem quite competent.