At Tuesday’s Fledge Watch we were very tired of waiting for the Pitt peregrines to fledge and someone joked, “They always fly when you’re not here, Kate. Don’t come to Schenley Plaza tomorrow.”
It worked. I didn’t hold a Fledge Watch on Wednesday June 7 and two of the three youngsters flew for the first time.
Kim Getz, who works at Pitt, was the first to notice. Just after lunchtime she saw lots of flying around the top of the Cathedral of Learning so she walked around the building and found two fledglings.
I alerted Peter Bell (Pitt Peregrines on Facebook) who sent me updates when he found them. Here are Peter’s photos of two fledglings flying and perching.
This one landed with talons outstretched. Grab that building!
The second fledgling perched near the northeast corner of the 30th floor. You can’t see this bird from any window.
Now that we had some action I went down to Schenley Plaza at 3:45p and stayed for an hour.
The third chick hadn’t flown yet — and still hadn’t as of 4:45p — but her parents really wanted her to. Hope carried food past her in the air as if to say, “If you fly you’ll get to eat.” Hope eventually gave up and dropped off the snack.
This morning at 7:25am Karen Lang saw two fledglings perched high on the Student Union side of the Cathedral of Learning. I plan to go to Schenley Plaza this afternoon to see what’s up.
Stop by Schenley Plaza for PITT PEREGRINE FLEDGE WATCH today, June 8, at 3:30PM.
(photos by Peter Bell, Pitt Peregrines on Facebook)
Thanks so much for the update, Kate. Such lovely photos, too! Let’s hope that third chick flies for you today!
Kate, I hope you get to see the chick fly today!
Peregrine nest box, badly designed, badly sited (IMNSHO)
Great Spirit Bluff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4yNAjhv_GM
…and several other videos of the same site
Peggy (Margaret), NATURE doing just fine….humans are the ones do all the damage on this Planet and screw thing up….Well, if humans keep doing what they’ve done lately – in Pittsburgh pretty soon will be living Penguins…..and no humankind…..
Gintaras B and Peggy, I think we all agree that the nestbox is poorly sited. My opinion is: If we humans provide a human-made nest box — whether it’s for peregrines or bluebirds — we should not create a situation where all/most of the young die every year. That kind of situation is a “biological sink” where the adults waste all their reproductive energy with no offspring to take their place when they eventually die. It’s “Nature” when birds choose a natural site that happens to be a biological sink. It is poor human behavior when we tempt birds to use a bad site that we made for them. Unfortunately, when we do something like this the birds become wedded to the location.