Father's Day with the Falcons

Friday was a bad day at Sunlife as some of you are aware from my previous blog. We visited Saturday and it was quite painful for Angie to be there so soon after the tragedy. But we did a scope and search that evening and located all 3 young Falcons plus one adult high up on the buildings.

I returned Sunday morning for a couple hours. Angie took the morning to catch up on our much neglected house and give it some "love" with a good dusting.

I located all 3 surviving siblings pretty quick upon arrival.  Two had flown in together onto the same ledge.  From what I could tell, it was the young male "Euro" and his little sister "Olympia".  Not easy to ID them from such heights but I did get a shot of the boy on the ledge with his green leg band and shortly after I caught another young Falcon in flight with a red leg band which meant that was "Windward", leaving "Olympia" as the other who flew onto the ledge.

Here is Windward in flight, speeding past us, one hundred feet plus above.

Suddenly one of the adults came flying in. And circled the tower a couple times.

So high up, so hard to capture with the lens; but so fun to watch.

Cathy, another volunteer watcher was with me, and we were quite certain the adult was Jack.  Pretty cool to see "Father Falcon" show up on Father's Day for us.

Another circle of the tower and Jack got some feedback from his children.  People down on Bloor Street with us this early Sunday morning also took notice to the screeching high above.

And seconds later out came one of the young Falcons; which turned out to be his son Euro.

I'd like to think that maybe this was the beginning of some flight training being passed from father to son.  And Euro, already a great little flyer for such a young Falcon, was keeping up to his dad.

Circling Sunlife, losing sight on the east, watching them come out on the west.

Euro even passed Jack at one point which must've been a very proud moment for both of them.

Euro's flying abilities improve every visit.  Today I could clearly see he is learning how to use the wind to glide, to conserve his energy for when needed most and his landings are matching those of his parents.

The fledge watch is officially over now until next year.  The young can fly, so all we can do now is monitor them, do head counts and wish them well.

But I am not leaving them yet.  I will continue to make visits in the coming weeks and hope to have more blogs about this family of Falcons.