The last few days have been stressful, to put it mildly. Both the females fledged this week, but only one survived less than 24 hours after her maiden flight. Both the male and remaining female gave us some anxious moments, too. The male fledged on Saturday, and we were unable to locate him Monday. On Tuesday, we got a report that, on Monday afternoon, he made a very rough landing on the corner of the Rainier Tower and flipped over onto the roof . Of course, we had visions of an injured bird lying on the roof in the heavy rains Monday night and Tuesday morning. We got permission to search the roof, but found no trace of him. Whew! Where he was hanging out the in the maze of downtown skyscrapers, we don't know, but he reappeared Wednesday morning, looking lively and healthy.
The first female fledged, off camera, sometime after 10:28 Wednesday morning. Yesterday, Thursday morning, around 7:00, she hit a window on the WaMu tower, above the NE 48th floor balcony, and fell to the balcony. It appeared that she died from a head injury; she had no other visible damage. These fledglings are so beautiful, with their spirit and curiosity and their perfect new feathers, that a death like this seems a waste, yet most of them won't survive to join the breeding population. It is the way their world is.
While the Thursday observers were retrieving the dead fledgling, her sibling made her first flight. She gave us a scare, too. Early in the afternoon, she smacked into the wall above the nest ledge and fell onto the ledge. The wall is glass and is not reflective; what in the world was she doing when she hit it? However, after a few hops and wing-flaps, she located some prey remains (that the adults had left) and eagerly gobbled down a twenty minute meal. She then settled down for a nap, until Bell brought her a fresh pigeon.
This morning, she and her sibling perched on the nest ledge together. They flapped their wings furiously and raced up and down the ledge, just as if they had never fledged; then they flew off together.
Stay tuned for their continuing adventures..
