Another Exemplary Morning

Can there be better flying than the best I've seen in eight years? You'll recall that's how I characterized the flying I witnessed a few days ago. You may also remember that I said I'd be getting out again the next day. Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans... Anyway, Monday has kind of a built-in impetus to get down to the Pont de Rennes, since it's the first day of work, and that's exactly where I found myself this morning. So can there be any better than the best flying? Maybe so.

I pulled up to the east end of the pedestrian bridge around 7:30AM. The early morning crew-- Jeanne, Carol, Dan and Larry-- were already there. They reported seeing all five juveniles earlier, and had four in sight; two in the gorge and another pair on the Clarion Hotel nearby.

There was little to see for the first half hour except for a gull that stood on the bridge's safety rail, waiting for Carol to serve up breakfast-- bits of her Egg McMuffin. Then the top of the hour rolled around, and you'd have been forgiven for thinking that someone had tripped a switch somewhere, because there were suddenly three juveniles in the air over the observation deck. They started with a harrassment run on the local crows, but turned quickly to chasing after each other.

Dan and Larry had left shortly before the flying started-- their loss! Carol and I knew where we had to be so we started down the path toward the falls, while Jeanne elected to stay on the bridge. Out on the observation deck we were treated to just about a solid half hour of flying, with only brief breaks in the action. Most of the chases were in pairs, starting with these two, who set the tone with some spirited tag:
          

          

It turned out to be Susan B and Zephyr! They took a rest on the chain link fence near the falls, but not for long:


Little Suzie was nowhere to be found on my last outing. Today she seemed to be everywhere, flying close and low. Once she flew in over our shoulders and dove into the gorge:


Then it was back to tagging with the Z-man, with a display that rivaled any that I've ever seen:
          

They both made plenty of fly-bys-- above, below and right at us:
          

When he wasn't buzzing the observation deck Zephyr made sport out of grabbing at the tree-tops:


Susan B let him have a little time to himself before resuming their game:
     

They both popped up out of the gorge, Susan B passing right overhead, while Zephyr made a low-level pass up the path that leads from the bridge to the observation deck:
          

          

Then the Z-man got really close!
     

He swung through the gorge again, then returned to attacking the trees:
     

Diamante must have decided that he wanted to get in on the action. Where he came from is anyone's guess, but he made his presence known with an extended talon to ward off his oncoming sister, whose wing you can just see at the bottom edge of this picture:


As I was following him with my camera, one of the other falcons flew between us. It's one of the more unusual shots I've taken:


They continued to circle, with Susan B coming up behind him:


Diamante nosed over into the gorge, giving me a good look at his red leg band:


Meanwhile, little Suzie made a pass so close and so fast that my camera's auto-focus faltered. The result was kind of interesting though:


I got better results when she flew against the blue sky:


Another new arrival, Seneca, landed on the concrete wall next to the falls, but left just as quickly:
     

With three fliers in the air almost all the time, it was nearly impossible to keep them in all in view. We'd follow one at a time, or a pair of them if they were talon tagging. They'd pass overhead faster than we could follow, or disappear beneath the lip of the gorge, and we'd immediately turn to scanning for another. The flying was fast and furious, and we got a real workout trying to follow all the action.

A welcome break came when Susan B decided to alight on the concrete outcropping just below the observation deck:
     

She stayed a few minutes, providing ample opportunities for pictures before taking off again:
          

Once we thought we had four fledglings in the air, but a closer look revealed a special guest-- Mariah!
     

She actually swooped in quite close to Carol and me, maybe to let us know she thought we might be just a little to close to her daughter. We expected her to have food, but she'd come to play, egging on her children who chased her through the gorge:
     

They coursed back and forth, some fledglings playing with Mariah, some with each other. Back at the pedestrian bridge Jeanne got a good look at two fledglings headed her way:


Up closer to the falls Susan B pursued her mother:
          

We'd seen four out of the five fledglings, and we weren't a bit surprised when Quest decided to show up:


She drew immediate attention from a sibling-- one of the boys, I think:


She made plenty of her own passes, up high and down low:
     

When she wasn't after one of her siblings she terrorized the local gull population:


Her chasing partner turned out to be young Diamante, his red band just barely visible behind his wing:


The pair went back and forth to our delight:
     

Susan B provided some real drama. All day she'd been flying low through the small park adjacent to the observation deck-- sometimes only a couple of feet high.
     

A groundhog there had caught her attention and she went back repeatedly to strafe it. Unfortunately, falcons don't understand traffic. She crossed St. Paul Street a couple of times, much too low for her health. Fortunately there were no cars passing by at the time, but her propensity for low flying is a cause for concern. I only hope that she'll grow out of it. Eventually she gave up on the groundhog and gained some altitude before dropping back into the gorge to chase Quest:
     

I'd frankly not expected to see much flying today. Mid July has traditionally signalled the end of the fledglings' time in the gorge, as they begin spending more time downtown. This year's brood have defied our conventional wisdom though, scrambling the "training schedule" we're used to-- Tower to smokestacks to gorge to downtown.

In any event, it was another fantastic morning of flying. 8:00 appears to be the magic hour. I'm hoping to get out again tomorrow to see if I'll get lucky for a third time.