Falcon chicks fledged

F

fujita yuji

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Jul 12, 2008
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Hi, all.
It's been a few weeks since I told you about the falcon's nest near my home last time.
This time, I have a good news and some photos.
All the chicks have grown up very well and some of them have fledged.
Not like their parents but now they can fly, trying to learn aerobatic skills.

2009.05.30.R0018552.JPG

2009.05.30.R0018553.JPG

The chick (this chick is male) and his mother. This is not their nest ledge.

2009.05.30.R0018563.JPG

It's a great job to take care of four chicks that Mother also have to feed herself.

Oops, almost forgot to post the latest blade shot.
R0018458.JPG

These are almost everything I have so far.

Thanks for looking.
 
fujita yuji, thanks for sharing those. You are lucky to be so close to something so amazing. What kind of falcons are those? Perigrine?


BTW..Nice knives as well:D
 
Cool post. Those appear to be Peregrine falcons. My vet had one in her office just sitting on an open perch; Amazing animals.
 
Thank you so much for posting. Peregrine (pilgrim) falcons are amazing creatures.
We spent some time in Idaho at the World Center for Birds of Prey and really learned a lot about them.
I'd certainly appreciate seeing more of your pictures.
 
I love Falcons. Thanks for posting these, as I never see them around my parts :(
 
They have grown quickly. Very beautiful. And I still like your brown handled knife A LOT!
 
This is not off-topic here by any means! The falcons are welcome visitors!
I updated the title to indicate Photos.
 
mrappraisit said:
fujita yuji, thanks for sharing those. You are lucky to be so close to something so amazing. What kind of falcons are those? Perigrine?
Click to expand...
Yes, they are peregrine falcons. They are nesting this area these several years.
When I move from Kyoto to Kamakura, I chose this town because I can access this
breeding site easily :)

Rockywolf said:
They have grown quickly. Very beautiful. And I still like your brown handled knife A LOT!
Click to expand...
Thanks, Rockywolf, brown handled one now belongs to my wife and she's using it everyday.

Esav Benyamin said:
This is not off-topic here by any means! The falcons are welcome visitors!
I updated the title to indicate Photos.
Click to expand...
Oh, thaks moderator for your welcome and updating.
 
And here's another shot of mother falcon.
She's having her joyful meal (a pigeon) after feeding her chicks.
R0018590.JPG


This one has fledged, though still not very good at flying as you may see :(
R0018614.JPG
 
When I was working on the 33d floor of a Los Smogeles 'scraper, I saw a falcon (one of two falcons that used to nest on top of the Union Bank building) smash a pigeon in midair. Must have hit it at 50-100 mph. Big cloud of feathers---just shattered the pigeon!

Thanks for the photos---those are some excellent views!

DancesWithKnives
 
DWK2, You have such a wonderful experience.
That's what I always wish to see (and have not yet seen) .
 
It was kind of embarrassing at the time. I was in my bosses' corner office and he had a client on the speakerphone, discussing a matter on which all of us were working. My boss was doing the vast majority of the talking so I was listening but looking out the windows. I saw the hapless pigeon flying by when suddenly it looked like it had been hit by a guided missile coming from above. I exclaimed "Holy Sh_t!!" and the client asked "What? What's going on???" I had to briefly explain and apologize. Unfortunately, by the time my boss looked up there were only pigeon feathers in the air and the falcon was heading back toward the Union Bank building with his or her meal.

At that time, the falcons were sort of celebrities downtown. Union Bank had a closed circuit TV constantly monitoring them and tried not to let anyone on to the roof when their chicks were small.

I've also seen a few falcons in the wild but never got such a close-up view of an aerial kill. I hope you get one soon (and have a camera at the time!).

DancesWithKnives
 
We had a famous pair of red-tailed hawks in New York City, nesting on a building on Fifth Avenue facing Central Park. Just to make it more fun, this was opposite an outdoor cafe by a small pool, so it was a gathering place anyway. Telescopes and cameras were a daily feature of the area. :)

One day I was sitting with my coffee and a book when a flock of pigeons exploded from the trees near me. I looked over and saw one of the adult hawks, wings tucked in, flying at high speed through dense branches. Amazing performance, you'd have thought he had radar to miss them all. Once the pigeons were in the open and it was a tail chase, they were pretty safe, and the hawk broke off, but he was only about ten feet overhead.

They raised a new brood every summer and the young hawks learned which big branch on which tree along the main path was for plucking their prey. Big carpet of pigeon feathers under the branch. I have seen them flying off with squirrel, as well.

(Here's more of the story: Pale Male.)
 
I watched a TV program on the NYC hawks and it was really interesting. As a hunter, I especially appreciated that lifetime urbanites saw first hand that if one animal is going to eat meat, another animal is going to die to provide it. That fact of life may have been known to them but the hawks brought it into sharp focus.

DancesWithKnives
 
American urban raptors are very impressive to me.
I stayed DC for a few days last October and saw a red-tailed hawk preying
on a squirrel near Potomac river. Ospreys were also seen above the river.
In Japanese cities, we can see only rooks and ravens, not a hawk in site :(

Actually, there are some pairs of goshawks nesting in the imperial palace of Tokyo,
which has quite a large size of dense forest in the very centre of the city.
I heard they mainly prey on pigeons and ravens around the most popularized business district.
But you know, goshawks are not like falcons.
As they are extremely stealth birds, it's not easy to spot them unless you know their watch post.
 
I'm impressed if those goshawks can take out a raven. Here in CA we have some darn big and tough ravens. I've seen them going after various hawks to run them off.

DancesWithKnives
 
Smaller birds generally run off big birds. The smaller birds are more maneuverable. The bigger, faster, stronger birds have the advantage when they hit hard from hiding.
 
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