Food Leads to Leaping Eyases

Today, Carol P, Grannywood and I decided to head up to the roof of Bldg 9 before walking out to the bridge. We got out onto the roof shortly before noon to find Mariah perched near the nest box:


She sat for a while, then launched into the air and circled for a bit. We thought perhaps she was going to do some hunting, when she began kacking. In seconds, Kaver had joined her and executed a food transfer. I was so enthralled watching their aerial display that I didn't get my camera up in time to take any pictures of the actual transfer (I think Granny got some, though). I do have a couple after she and Kaver separated. She flew overhead with the prey clutched in her talons:




Kaver landed on the decorative iron lilies that spring from the apex of the steeple on the Kodak tower...


... while Mariah went to what has become her customary feeding spot for this year, the perch on the east side of the nestbox. Well, the eyases must have been really hungry, because we were watching Mariah settle down to feed them, when suddenly a brown shape went tumbling down into the playpen! We gasped, nearly in unison, then realized none of us had been watching through our binoculars. Was it one of the eyases? Some of the prey? A trick of the light in the oppressive mid-day haze?

I unlimbered my cell phone and dialed up Fal-Kenn Martinez to see if he could elucidate for us. Surprisingly, he was in his office (Kenn's a very busy guy), and he swung the camera around, quickly locating an eyas on the ledge directly beneath the nest box. The young falcon appeared to be unharmed according to Kenn, so I thanked him and got back to viewing, never suspecting that two falcons had actually fallen from the nest at the same time. It was only much later, when I returned to my office, that I learned of the second eyas, which had fallen out with the first, and landed on the floor of the "playpen", a catwalk around the steeple that's protected by a wrought iron railing. Thanks to Birdman and the Birdcam team who kept the magnificently flexible Camera 1 trained on the two wayward eyases for much of the afternoon, we learned that it was Fulmine and Ihteram who had taken the unintended plunge. But for the duration of our watch, we believed only one eyas had left the scrape.

An initial moment of alarm soon gave way to recognition that the situation did not call for concern. Aside from some ee-chupping from Mariah (a sound we normally associate with courtship between her and Kaver), she acted unconcerned, continuing to feed the eyases in the nest box. You can see Aconcagua's fluffy white head along with one of his siblings in this feeding shot:


She even flew out to the High Falls stack for a time, before returning to the tower, landing on Camera 1's arm:




Kaver wasn't idle during this time. Rather, he practiced his hunting skills, taking off from the lilies at least three times to harass the resident American Kestrel female in a maneuver we've come to call a "Kestrel Run" (it reminds me of the "Kessel Run", made famous by another raptor, the Millenium Falcon from Star Wars). On each run, he'd launch himself from the tower at speed and go immediately into a shallow dive, wings tucked halfway in to dump some altitude. Then near the northern smokestack he'd go into a full power dive, swooping down and slingshotting back up in a reverse parabolic arc that's a true thing of beauty to observe. At the apogee of his flight he'd roll back toward the Kodak tower, wings pumping, and land again on the lily.

On his third attack run, I saw him make contact with the Kestrel (or miss by mere inches). He made a low pass by us before returning to his post:



After that, Mariah and Kaver settled in. Looking west we saw a great bank of dense gray clouds approaching. Heavy thunderstorms had been forecast, so we decided to go down to the Pont de Rennes pedestrian bridge to let our fellow watchers know what had transpired at the nest box. We found Shaky, Lisa McKeown, and Dan Stiehler there, and we related our tale, then headed back toward Kodak in the face of the approaching storm. We were caught out, though, and we were obliged to take shelter beneath the outdoor dining deck of Jimmy Mac's. We were tempted to take lunch there while the thunder shook like a cannon battery and bolts of lightning stabbed the air. In fifteen minutes, though, the torrent slackened, and so we made our hasty way back to Kodak to resume our afternoon work schedules.