Thankfully there were no “grounders” over the weekend; I managed to get round 5 of the sites that I monitor including the site where the same male grounded in consecutive days last week.
On this particular site it looks like the premature flight last week was very likely down to over eagerness on the little males part, all 4 juveniles were on show for over 2 hours and none were flying despite the best efforts of the adult female trying to coax them out.
From here I moved on to another site and these were well and truly on the wing, the light was pretty good but the wind was quite strong, they handled the wind admirably but the landings……they will learn.
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| Juvenile flying well... |
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| But the landings.... |
There is one site in particular come fledging that will always be a bit of worry, I am watching this site on CCTV at the moment, from earlier posts this was the site that failed last year due to pirate radio being installed on the roof.
The building in regard to fledging juveniles is not ideal but the adults will not move, I have also explored over the years various other buildings/structures but very few are ‘peregrine friendly’and will offer security and safe fledging. There are 3 juveniles this year but one fledged late evening yesterday, looking at conditions today there is little wind, not ideal, I am hoping that they will both fledge later in the week in windier weather.
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| Adult Falcon |
You can’t safeguard them all and there will always be casualties, a prime example is Nathalie’s pair that she monitors at Charring X, it simply just disappeared. It is unfortunate and it will certainly not be the last one that ‘disappears’, urban fledging is fraught with danger. I have said it before and will say it again each individual site needs a person(s)/group to monitor them during the breeding period. This however takes a lot of commitment and a lot of time, you have to be pretty dedicated but I have to say the rewards at the end when they fledge are worth every hour standing there watching over them.
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