Flying Leaps!

Silver Girl takes a flying leap toward the snapshot camera, 6 June 2022 (photo from the snapshot camera at Univ of Pittsburgh)

7 June 2022

There are First Flight updates at the end of this article.

Yesterday the young Pitt peregrines practiced their flight skills by making short flying leaps to nearby ledges. The snapshot camera captured their antics, sometimes quite close!

Today they won’t be so active because it’s raining all day. Wet feathers are heavy so young birds who’ve never flown don’t make their first attempt in the rain. Today’s Fledge Watch is canceled because …

UPDATES between bouts of rain:

FLEDGLING UPDATE: 9:30am and noon from rooftop in North Oakland: It appears one of the chicks fledged this morning to the high side of the Cathedral of Learning, facing Heinz Chapel. (My guess is Red Boy.) Why I think this: Morela is babysitting in unusual places on 40th and 38E patio ledge. Morela’s behavior is a Fledge Watch Tip, described here.

FLEDGLING UPDATE: 12:30 to 1:00pm on a quick walk to Schenley Plaza: Two juvenile females were on the nestrail flapping, leaping, skimming the nestrail. At 1:00pm the darker one (I think Silver Girl) launched from the nestrail and flew a lot! Morela & Ecco both zoomed in & herded her back to the CL. (Ecco dropped his talons to herd her.) She landed on the netting at SE 26 & is cooling off, probably getting her heartbeat back to normal.

(photos from the National Aviary snapshot camera at Univ of Pittsburgh)

3 thoughts on “Flying Leaps!

  1. I took a photo of a falcon on the ledge outside my 7th floor office at Pitt Public Health on June 1. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see bands because of the window height but it looked juvenile and it was being harassed by (maybe) a northern mockingbird.

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