On Windward

Yesterday I had an up close visit with Windward. She had left the nest ledge at Sunlife, flew across Bloor Street and ended up on the small Bell Canada building at the corner of Bloor and Eagle. And that is where she stayed for a very long time, over 8 hours.  So a whole lot of time was spent looking around, and a lot of stretching for both her...  and Frank and I.

And it was cool to have a moment of eye contact with her as shown below.  I was reveling in her beauty and the fact of how young she is, how she has much to learn in the coming weeks and hoping she lives a very long life somewhere in North America.  Just because she was born here in Toronto, does not mean she will remain here.  Peregrine means "wanderer".

After she and her siblings leave the nest later in the year, it may be two years or so...  if they survive (approximately 90% of raptors unfortunately do not survive the first year)...  before she and the others might be spotted and reported once they start nesting/breeding.  We have one Falcon from the summer of 2011's watch at Osler who sticks in our head, Rain, and hope to hear of something about her come 2013.  We watched Rain one evening as she got herself on a tiny ledge on the 9th floor of William Osler Hospital and stayed there through the night.  It was our first Falcon Angie and I really focused on in our first season of watches.

Stretch those wings Windward!

I spent 90 minutes at the watch on Thursday before work.  It was so hard to leave.  I wanted to see her make it back to the nest ledge.  It was going to be a lot of work for the young Falcon.  She was on a two story building here, and the crossing of Bloor Street would be nothing; but getting back up to that ledge 18 or so stories up is another thing.

Late afternoon reports had her making the flight back to the north side of Bloor and disappeared somewhere around Sunlife and the surrounding condos.  Even with some searching, she still was not to be seen.  Not much anybody could do but wait, and wait, and wait some more.  But somewhere just before dusk, she and her 3 siblings all appeared back home.  Whew!

This is how I left the site yesterday, looking up at Windward perched not far from the GMC.  I wished her well and said "see ya tomorrow!"  Now tomorrow is today and I am off for another watch...