Wing flapping
June 10, 2016 - Kitchener - CTV-Bell Media Tower
Lisa Reh Reports:
It was an uneventful start to the watch Friday morning at 6:00. All 4 babies were sitting at the front of the nest box and Caster was perched above them on one of the railings at the top of the CTV tower. There wasn’t much vocalizing and Mystery was nowhere to be seen. All four juveniles were accounted for at 8:30 am. Shortly after, a small food drop came in from one of the adults with much excitement from the kids. One of the sisters snatched it and took it to the back of the nest box where she hid it from the others. Mystery was at the top of the tower and Caster flew to the small tower. The kids were still screaming until about 8:45 when they went inside to see if they could get a morsel of what was left of the food drop. Mystery took off and circled the tower a few times and then leaves. Caster flew away over the the hospital parking garage. Tenor looked like he was going to go for it a few times as he leaned out but then backed off. Mystery came back with a pigeon around 10:20.
From 12:30 to 1:30 there were a few appearances on the ledge and a bit of wing flapping, but overall pretty quiet and no adults in sight. Things were pretty quiet in the afternoon. At 2:30 and they become more active, with lots of wing flapping on the balcony and inside the box. The activity level went up over the next hour and quieted down again at 3:30.
At 5:00, again there was lots of vigorous wing flapping, much of it on the ledge. Around 5:30, one of the adults showed up with food which caused a lot of excitement. The adult circled the parking lot about half a dozen times before flying off. The young ones spent most of their time on the edge of the box, flapping their wings. There were several very noisy bouts of calling by all four however no adults were spotted. Around 6:50 p.m., one of the adults flew in and landed on the tower on the King Towers apartment building. The young ones got really vocal then but they finally settled down when the adult made no move to take any food to the box. It was very quite at 7:15 p.m.
At this point the kids are still being well fed. In the morning watch, the parents were trying to coax them out, but with all that food it might be few more days before they get braver. The parents will soon be bringing less food to the nest box and will coax them with food from the air.
Photos courtesy of Karen von Knobloch
