Fledglings' Flying Improves

Hang on to your hats, gentle readers. We have a lot of ground to cover.

The fledglings all seem to be flying very well, but the proof is in the pudding, as they say. Here at Lord Garavin's Bird Blog, the pudding is made of silicon and complimentary metal oxides, and instead of an oven, my pudding lies in a Kodak DX6490 digital camera. In fact, I've got so much pudding for this entry that I'm going to keep the exposition to a minimum. If you're not big on metaphor, don't worry. You'll see what I mean soon.

There was a lot of flying early on, including a game of talon tag, with as many as three juveniles joining in:
          

After Skye's transmitter fitting, I was anxious to see how she was flying. As you can see from these pictures, her wings appear to be working quite well:
     

And here she is shortly after flying over to the northern smokestack to join one of her siblings:


Meanwhile, the remaining fledgling from the talon tag triumvirate landed on the "D" in the KODAK sign:


Kaver and Mariah spent a lot of time in the air this morning, coaxing the fledglings into the air:
          

Here's Mariah preparing some food while two fledglings look on from above and below her:

This shot gives a good indication of typical perches for the eyases. Experienced watchers learn the intricacies of the Kodak tower's rich architecture, so that the small form of a perched falcon becomes easier to spot. Here's another juvenile, shortly after she landed on the southwest "crown", the ornate corner blocks at the 20^th floor:


During a break in shooting the falcons, this avian traveler passed over the Kodak tower. Another watcher thought it might be a cormorant. I'm no good with waterfowl, but here's the picture:

Want to offer an ID? E-mail me or leave a comment!

I went up onto the roof of the Kodak office complex to see if I could get some closer shots. Here's another flight by a juvenile. Unfortunately, I panned a bit too fast in the first shot, and the subject is not as sharp as I would have liked:
     

Mariah flew low over the roof of Building 9, where I was standing:


It was just about this time that Shaky broadcast that he'd found a fledgling on the ground at BeeBee station. It seemed that he'd been knocked down the stack by one of his siblings during a landing attempt at the top of the northern smokestack. By the time I got down off the roof and out to the station, he'd identified Fulmine, and the tiercel was already working his way up and out of his predicament:
     
(That's him flying behind the tree)

Here's a burst sequence showing a fledgling landing on top of the northern stack. You can see how much their breaking and landing skills have improved:
          

          

We're all very pleased with the progress of these fledglings. All of them appear to be flying well, and it seems that they may have passed the most dangerous phase of their transition to flight, though that's no reason for us to become complacent, so I'll keep watching and reporting while the fledglings continue honing their aerial skills.