Fledging-- Fun, Frenetic, and Frustrating

Well, the past couple of days have brought the first fledging flights of the Kodak Peregrine eyases, and the activity so far has run the adjectival gamut: Exhilarating, anguished, rewarding, fatiguing, heart-stopping. Where to begin...

We watchers have been a busy bunch. Four out of five of the eyases have left the Kodak tower and taken those first tentative flights. Only Aconcagua, the last to hatch, has remained safe in the playpen. Fulmine was the first to go, winging around the Kodak tower in the early hours of June 21:

Thus far, he's taken a measured approach to his flights, choosing relatively short hops, never venturing too far from the Kodak tower. Here he is sitting on a ledge below the eastern side of the "playpen":

His flying has steadily improved. This afternoon watchers spotted him flying and landing amongst the triple smokestacks of the Rochester Gas and Electric BeeBee station in the company of Mariah, who eventually led him back to the Kodak tower, to the cheering accompaniment of the watchers gathered below.

His sisters haven't fared quite as well. True to their mother's bold heritage, Skye, Ihteram, and Esperanza have all made long flights to from the tower to the High Falls stacks, and all three of them have ended up on the ground behind BeeBee station's chain-link fences.

Skye was the first to fledge yesterday, following her brother. Her initial flights in the morning were largely uneventful, and at noon I found her practicing her balancing skills on the roof of the Kodak Office tower:


She finally made it to the apex of the roof:


Her flight out to the High Falls stack was as notable for its audaciousness as for it's worrisome results. She overshot the landing badly, and ended up tumbling down through the unused stack. While we watchers fretted, she calmly walked out of the stack (through a hole cut in the base for just such use), seeming none the worse for wear.


She spent the afternoon and evening of the 21^st making short hops from building to building, eventually landing on the roof of the Kodak Office lobby, where she spent the night. Having gone without food for nearly a day, she blundered through the Kodak Office complex of buildings this morning, and had to be rescued from a perch near a busy road on the west side of Kodak Office this morning. Taken to a local wildlife veterinarian for examination following her capture, she was found to have strained some of her flight muscles, and it seems she'll need to spend a few days at Wild Wings while she regains her strength and recovers from her injury.

Ihteram made her inaugural flight this morning, and somehow ended up in the RG&E pokey as well:


She looks like she's in good shape. According to watcher reports, she spent most of the day hopping around, exploring the area. A couple of times when a feral cat approached, Mariah intervened on her daughter's behalf, strafing and diving on the feline repeatedly until it fled the area. Here's Ihteram channeling her mother's Fierce Look®

She's active and alert, and is most likely just sizing up her options for flying out of the power station's grounds.

Fulmine took a flight out to the smokestacks at lunchtime today:


He nearly stuck the landing on the stack, braking by pulling up and flapping his wings. Instead, he landed on a ladder on the northeast side of the stack. He stayed there for a while then hopped up on top of the smokestack. A few minutes later, he flew back to the Kodak tower and executed a very yeoman-like landing on the playpen railing, again to the cheers of the onlooking watchers.

His sister Esperanza followed him out today, and she headed for the middle smokesatck. Like her brother, she tried to brake and she swooped up to a landing on the lip of the stack, but the wind was gusty today, and in her inexperience, she missed the landing. A search of the smokestack from all angles (including the use of camera 1 to view the top of the stack by the Birdcam Team) turned up no sign of her. it was not until several hours later that I was able to go down to the base of the smokestack, 20 feet (6 meters) below street level, and there we found her, safe and sound, having likely fluttered to the bottom of the stack and walked out under her own power. She found a perch on a large-diameter pipe which is open to the sky and free of obstructions. She is near Ihteram, and like her sibling, she should be able to fly out as soon as she decides that's the thing to do.

So... these early fledgers have taken big steps, full of risk and consequences. We have more watchers than I've ever seen for this first week of wobbly flying. Their dedication to these fledglings is nothing short of outstanding. We arm ourselves with binoculars, notepads, water bottles, cameras and two-way FRS radios (Channel 7, sub-channel 1), the better to maintain our vigilance. The newly flying juveniles are putting us through our paces this year, to be sure. A few more days of uncertainty and watchfulness, and the pace may slacken a bit as the fledglings learn the rudiments of controlled landings. Then we can relax, if only a little, and enjoy the amazing spectacle of Peregrines learning to fly and hunt. For now, we'll continue to watch, and do what we can to help ensure that the fledglings have the best possible chance to graduate into masters of the air, fulfilling their progenitors' rich legacy.