Pleasant Morning, Gorge-ous Afternoon

Lots of flying this morning kept us on our toes. The air was pleasingly cool, even a bit brisk, so I grabbed my jacket from the car. Linn seemed to like it, because she was in the air quite a lot:


Grace landed on Camera 1's mounting arm around 6:40, but she took off again soon:
     

After a spirited chase with Linn and Ananta, they both landed on top of Building 9. Ananta didn't want to stay out of the air for long, though. Linn's askance look as her sister takes off is kind of comical:
     

Linn followed and their chase recommenced:
          

Ananta landed on the corner of Building 9 again:


There was a brief lull in the action, broken when Mariah arrived with food. Sacajawea and Linn leapt into the air, racing for the breakfast:


Sacajawea was the faster, and she flipped over to take the prey from her mother:
     

Linn closed in, but too late:


Her breakfast secured, Sacajawea bulleted toward the center stack's catwalk, Linn close on her tail. Linn landed on the floor of the catwalk while her sister continued toward the rail:
     

She ate a few bites while she balanced on the narrow iron:


Inexplicably she took her meal and flew, making a spectacular landing on the shadowy northwest side of the catwalk:
          

I don't know exactly how it happened, but Linn took off from the catwalk, and when she did she had a morsel of her own in her talons:
     

One of her sisters-- Ananta, I think-- took off in hot pursuit:
          

Their chase went north of the visitor parking lot toward Kodak's Building 10:


Ananta peeled away as they approached the building, but poor Linn continued on, crashing into a window with a solid thump that I heard all the way over by the smokestacks:


She fell, and another building blocked my view. Fearing the worst, I sprinted toward State Street, expecting to find a dazed or injured fledgling on the sidewalk. My trepidation turned to relief when she appeared to the north, heading toward the smokestacks with steady wingbeats, apparently no worse for her collision:
     

She landed on the High Falls stack's catwalk where I believe she enjoyed her breakfast. The action slowed after that, and I headed into the office to get some work done.

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At lunchtime I headed out again. Oddly, I was unable to locate a single fledgling on the Kodak tower, nor did they appear to be perching anywhere on the smokestacks or surrounding buildings. Barbara and I went out on the Pedestrian bridge to look, and met first Cathy D'Angelo and then Dana. Our search from the bridge proved fruitless as well, so we headed back toward Kodak for a look around the north side. We ended up spotting one fledgling apparently napping on the floor of the center stack's catwalk. As more watchers joined in, we saw a couple of them flying out over the gorge, so we decided to head back to the bridge.

Mariah put in an appearance, circling over the bridge near the BeeBee station:


Two fledglings came off the east gorge wall and began a frenetic chase between the falls and the bridge. As they approached, Grace swooped up and landed on the railing near the east end:


She took off when a passing pedestrian walked nearby, and flew upriver, passing in front of the falls:


On the return trip she actually passed right over the bridge, on her way to a landing on one of the High Falls Brewing Company buildings:
          

Two others raced north of the bridge near the BeeBee station:


Mariah and Kaver both joined in the flying, sometimes chasing their daughters, sometimes flying solo:
     

When one of the girls landed at the foot of the observation deck, Mike, Dana and I headed up the path, hoping for a close-up view. Along the way, Linn treated us to a spectacular low-level fly-over:


The fledgling on the rock flew before we could get to the observation deck, but I managed to snap these shots of her:
     

We were surprised to see a wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) appear on the cliff edge just beneath us:


We learned later that one of the fledglings had chased it up the side of the gorge!

After more minutes of flying the fledglings all settled in. A couple of them landed on the gorge wall, including this one who took a siesta on a small rocky cornice:


Even Kaver found a comfortable perch on a dead bough:


An afternoon teleconference forced me to return to the office. I'm thrilled to see that the fledglings are migrating out toward the gorge. This is where the best flying of the season is likely to occur, so I'm excited to get out this weekend for more watching.