Eleven Years Later, a Graceful Exit

Change is hard. On Monday I got to experience that lesson in person as Kenn Martinez and I supervised the removal of Mariah and Kaver's nest box. A special rigging crew hired by Kodak was on hand to handle the heavy lifting and to safely lower the box from its perch of eleven years on top of the Kodak tower. Jason, Drew and Tom from OIS did a fantastic job helping us to get the nest box and cameras uninstalled.

Bright morning sun and a cool breeze provided just the right conditions for doing the work. Of course, Mariah stopped by to supervise:


But she's a busy Peregrine, so seeing that we had things well in hand she took off and let the crew get back to work. Unbolting four angle brackets allowed the OIS crew to pull the box away from the cupola so Kenn could remove the cameras. I was surprised to see a lot of debris where the box had been, including bits of prey remains and several dessicated, regurgitated falcon pellets:
     

Once the cameras came out the riggers moved the nest box around to the north side of the catwalk for the next step-- lowering it to the 19^th floor:
     

The box is too big to remove it through the small elevator that provides access to the cupola. There's a spiral staircase up there too, but its even more crowded than the elevator, so going over the side was the only option for getting the box down intact. The rigging crew attached straps and rope to the box, then put it over the side and slid it down the roof of the Kodak tower, where Tom waited below to receive it:


Then it was over the side again for a short abseil to the 19^th floor lobby, where it was safely retrieved:


Back out front we got to work on the cameras. The heavy duty conduit pipe used to connect the cameras to the catwalk railing were in surprisingly good shape, having suffered through years of Rochester winters. I remember installing many of them, frozen to the core in the depths of Feburary winters, so removing them on a cool summer morning was a welcome change. Here's Kenn detaching the Rochester Falconcam's high resolution Main Camera from the mounting arm:


A couple of rusted bolts had to be broken free, and there was a lot of cabling that needed to be handled with care, but all in all I was surprised at the ease with which the equipment came down.

Then it was done. Maybe because it went so quickly and so smoothly, it was strangely anticlimactic. I guess I was expecting some drama, or at least a few challenges, but there were none. It's a testament to the quality of the work done by the Birdcam team over the years to install the cameras and nest box that the removal went as well as it did. In the end, it was like turning the calendar back to 1995:
     

Other than the detritus where the nest box had been and some falcon whitewash it was hard to tell that this cramped, windy loft had seen eleven generations of endangered Peregrines hatched, fed and raised in a simple wooden box, or that thousands of viewers around the globe had followed Mariah and her family through all their many successes, and a few heartbreaks too. Kodak played host to the most productive single-falcon nest in the country. It's a wonderful legacy, and every Kodak employee, visitor and customer ought rightly to feel proud.

It was not until the work was done that I suddenly realized what a great effort had been undertaken here, what great history had been made, what great service had been done in the effort to reintroduce Peregrines to the eastern United States. I admit that taking down the nest box left me feeling somber, but only for a little while. The DEC and GVAS will install replacement nest boxes on nearby buildings in the next few weeks. The Kodak box may even find a new home if it passes inspection by the DEC and is found to be a good match for another location. And Mariah's an adaptable, successful falcon without question. Of course there's no certainty with nature, but I remain optimistic that we'll be watching her and Kaver raise their twelfth brood somewhere close by in 2009.

While Kenn and I were cleaning up and storing the equipment following its removal, I found that the construction work on the Kodak Tower has already begun:


This scaffolding will soon envelop the small covered walkway in the picture. It hasn't been used for decades, and it's due to be removed as the first step in the Tower restoration work. In the coming months the scaffolding will grow to surround the tower, and the work will commence in earnest. And with a little luck Mariah will get to watch the busy workers scurrying around the tower from her new nursery next spring.