We now have several days observations of our male and female fledglings on the wing. He, with over a week on the wing (fledged June 10), has learned to use the rising air currents effectively, and his circling and gliding are graceful and sure. His female sibling has less time on the wing (fledged June 14) and less finesse in flight, but her wingbeats are strong, and she appears very fast in direct flight. If we could follow them with a camera during all their flights, their transformation in flight skills would probably appear to be as fast as their changes in behavior when they were nestlings.
It's not just flight skills that they need to acquire; they also need to learn how to land on different types of perches and how to use their feet for grasping and grabbing. These naive youngsters still believe that food is something a parent delivers to them; they've got a lot to learn. Holding down food and pulling on it was something they learned on the ledge. They also learned to snatch food from their mother's beak and run away with it. Now they are learning to fly to an adult carrying prey and attempt to take that prey from the adult in flight. Fortunately, the adults are good at lightning-fast dives to retrieve what they drop.
Both Bell and Stewart are bringing in food for their offspring, but usually one parent watches them while the other hunts. The fledglings are not yet at the stage where they chase the adults every time they see them, so the adults can perch within view, though not too close, without having to deal with much more than an occasional bout of screaming from one of the youngsters. The fledglings have a great life right now - they have the whole downtown to explore, the wind to play in, each other for socializing, and the adults to bring them food. Halcyon days - but the transition from fledglings to self-sufficient predators is already underway.
Stay tuned.
