Flights, Food, Flapping

Duty with the Medical Emergency Response Team kept me close to the Kodak office today, so I took advantage of the situation by going up rather than out. Moving along the rooftops, I settled near the complex's cooling towers, a position that provided a largely unobstructed view of the south and west sides of the tower.

Beyond a few flashes of wing from the playpen, Ananta and Grace were little in evidence. Mariah had a prominent perch near the northeast corner of the playpen railing on the west side. I assume that one or both of her daughters were down below:


Sacajawea and Linn peered out from the nestbox, with our yellow-banded Shoshone girl taking her usual position on the left side of the perch rail, but other than the occasional move from one or another of the scrape-bound eyases there was little activity.

That changed with Kaver's arrival. He flew in clutching prey, and landed on the southeast corner of the playpen floor, where he commenced noshing:
     

     

The eyases in the nestbox began immediate, insistent begging wails:


I can only assume that Ananta and Grace hastened toward Kaver, because he took off with the prey not long after he'd landed. A circling flight over the parking lot south of the Kodak Office complex brought him back to the nestbox, where I anticipated a food transfer to Linn and Sacajawea:
          

          

Kaver, though, had other plans. Who can say what goes on in that little tiercel brain of his? Maybe he was trying to coax the nestlings into leaving the scrape, or maybe he just decided he was still hungry. Whatever his motive, he suddenly reversed direction, flying back to the south, even grabbing a bite from his morsel as he flew:
          

          

His flight carried him downtown, chased no doubt by the disapproving cries from his offspring. I followed him through the hazy noontime air until he swooped out of sight inside the elevator shaft on the Four Seasons building.

All the commotion seemed to cue Mariah into action. She left her perch and made a few loops around the Kodak tower before settling on the High Falls smokestack:
     

     

I traded information with the other watchers on the ground, who included Carol P, Shaky, Lisa McK and Dana. The action subsided then, and the rest of the hour was uneventful, save for a bit of wing exercise from the nestbox. I was pleased to see Linn come to the edge of the scrape and give her wings a vigorous workout:


Not to be outdone, Sacajawea joined in:


Kaver surprised us all with a stealth move back to the tower, appearing on his lily out of apparent thin air:


Angry looking storm clouds rolled in as the hour drew to a close. Only minutes after I returned to the office the sky darkened to an ominous gray and sheets of rain driven by furious winds drenched the downtown streets along with anyone unlucky enough to be caught out. In fact, one man was killed in the brief, intense storm when a tree fell on him, blown over by the dangerous wind, and at Kodak Park a temporary wall collapsed. Fortunately no one was injured in that incident. The falcons seemed to take it all in stride, with Sacajawea and Linn hanging out at the edge of the scrape, and Kaver even flying through the storm. Cooler weather came behind the tempest as it blew eastward, and our falcon family appears to be none the worse for its passing.