Saturday, July 9, 2011

Saturday Activities

Updates from Friday late day: I don't have all the birds identified in this story but one bird flew into a construction site and Bob got a call that a worker had the bird in a bucket. A bird flew over to the map, which you can see in the video, missed and slid into the gardens. Was retrieved. At another point a woman who is a volunteer for the church kept telling our people that she had a bird on the sidewalk across the street. They kept telling her, no, it couldn't be because they had all kids accounted for, but Steve finally went over just to make sure and sure enough, she had one of the kids. Amazing. Later in the evening, a woman called and said she absolutely new where Charlie was, she had spotted him and an adult on the west side of the Temple. She was right, Charlie was finally found and stayed put all night.

Sally came down one more time and Bob just decided to take her home with him instead of risking putting her back up. So this morning he waited until about 9am to take her back up and when he did, Bobbie, who was still up on the Beehive, flew off to the Temple and remained there the rest of the day. So Charlie and Bobbie are both on the same spire of the Temple, Charlie on the West face and Bobbie on the North.

Amelia had been on the map building all night and all morning until about noon. She followed the shade as it moved along the edge of the building, laying down in the shade, then five minutes later having to get up again and walk 12 inches to the shade and lay down again, until finally she flew back over to her favorite spot sitting under a spotlight. When Sally was released at nine, she immediately flew off southeast, both adults followed her, herding her back west where she smacked into the Zions Bank Building. She ended up on a sill in the shade. She stayed there for about 30 min then flew over towards the nestbox, glanced off onto a sill. Ten minutes later she flew over to the admin bldg and was fed by an adult. That was when we noticed her wing looking funny. She stayed there for a long time, walked the whole perimeter then made a flight again southeast, but looped around to land back on admin bldg just one ledge lower which put her in shade. At this point I left because all kids seemed to be in shade to hang out for the afternoon.

Here are the latest updates on the kids which was sent out my another volunteer, Pomera. I appreciate getting Pomera's updates every evening because I usually have to leave the grounds by 2pm and feel so left out of the evenings activities. Following the updates are many photos from today with captions.

Here's the latest on the falcons as of tonight at 10:00 p.m. The number by their names designates the order in which they fledged:

#1 - Amelia (female) - took her first flight since fledging early morning on July 6th and is currently resting on the temple.

#2 - Charlie (male) - fledged early morning on July 7th. He has literally "found his wings" and has been flying up a storm. At last report, he had made his way up quite high on the Church Office Building where we hope he will settle in for the night. In retrospect, we needn't have been worried about Charlie's well being when he went MIA. He knew where he was and so did his doting parents, but it's tough on the watch team when we don't have them in sight.

#3 - Sally (female) - fledged early morning on July 7th. Has taken the most hits - nothing serious, however. She "crashed" yesterday evening and it was too late to take her back up for another try. So she went home with Bob. Same scenario tonight. This bird's no dummy. I'm thinking she couldn't turn down another night of Walters' hospitality.

#4 - Bobbie (female) - slipped out of the box midday on July 7th. She's doing really well given how young she was when she took her first tumble. She is currently on the roof of the north visitors' center.
Bobbie on North Face JSMB 7:30 am, just in front of that red, white and blue shield on the right side of the spade. When Bob brought Sally up to release her, Bobbie spooked a bit and flew off the curley cue and over to the Temple where she sat around the corner from Charlie for most of the morning.

Amelia on the 'wailing wall' so called because she's been there for days just crying but won't fly.

Volunteers: Nate and Jack starting duty this morning.

Finally, Charlie is found. Isn't he pretty? He sat in this spot all morning on the west side of the Temple.

I believe this is Mom, keeping watch over Charlie, just above him.

Volunteers: Cindy and Pomera keeping track of Charlie.

The guy on the left is Bob Walters, the one who organizes all of us and kept Sally overnight. Volunteer June is seated

All the volunteers meeting up for a break. On the right of this picture just across the street is the brick building Bobbi sat on all day yesterday and where she got picked up by a construction worker after flying into the pit.

This is Sally, who once again is sleeping at Bob's house because she can't stop crashing into buildings. This is just before taking her up to be released this morning at 9:15 am.

This is Sally after being released and immediately flying off Beehive, looping once with adults and crashing into this building and sliding down to this sill at 9:25

Guess who? Sally of course, after glancing off JSMB, she is now sitting on Admin Bldg with what looks like a hurt wing, now at 10:20.

Amelia, who would get up and move to shade every 5 minutes as it moved along this wall. When she got within 10 squares of the street, she got up and flew over to the wall in picture below.

Larger view North, note the map I refer to a lot and this is also the 'wailing wall'. Yes, Amelia is in this photo just at the edge of the shade.

This is the view looking East (I was on 10th fl of JSMB, the Admin Bldg is just across and there is Sally, sitting about 1/3 of the distance over on the edge going south.

Amelia, who finally flew off the wall!

Amelia, back up on the wall, under her favorite lamp. She sat in this spot a lot yesterday too.

2 comments:

Becky said...

Thank you so much for this blog. I can't believe how invested (obsessed?) I am with these birds! I would love to be a "helper" but alas I've been in North Carolina for a bit of a vacation and that makes for a long commute!

Trish said...

Great pictures!! Sounds like an event filled weekend. I was out of town and missed the updates. Glad Charlie was found safe!!!