FalconCam Project

We arrived this week at work to find all three youngsters have now taken their steps into the outside world, and none too soon as the female chick was on Day 43, overdue to fly. The weekend was unbearably hot and she was seen to be suffering again in the corner of the roost, but with her departure comes plenty more hope.

Latest reports of the family of five indicate dad has been a regular visitor with offerings of galahs and crested pigeions while the youngsters spend time in the branches of the gum and pine trees below the tower. The second male was yet again found on the ground on Saturday but was coaxed away again and this time flew up in a wide arc into the trees, hence safe from terrestrial marauders.  Mum has been spotted again in the same trees and has taken over her territory from humans, becoming annoyed with any intrusions.

This morning the first male was seen on top of the tower trying to eat breakfast before losing balance and part-sliding down before opting for flight as a preferred solution. Phase two for the three fledglings now but hopefully we’ll get to see plenty more of them as they learn to hunt and spread their wings.

For now the cameras are quiet … and the rain has finally started this afternoon …

After our retrieval efforts this morning the day continued on with its familiar pattern of escape attempts. The extreme hot weather made life very difficult for both remaining peregrine chicks and for a while we were anxious about the youngest chick’s health and well-being. We believe now we’ve been able to identify the three offspring as two males and a female; the males mature earlier but are smaller whereas the females are up to one- third larger but take a little longer to mature.  This morning the two older males decided to make a break for it but the remaining female chick suffered as the heat was turned up; it could also have been a lack of food supply because in this weather – possibly topping 37-38degC up the tower – very little prey was braving the day.

Luckily about 5pm dad arrived with dinner and fortunes turned around. While she was eating we went for a walk through the trees at the foot of the tower and managed to locate one of the male fledglings and mum, who provided us with a fantastic  display of aggravated flying, and indeed showed junior how to pull a mid-air stall turn into the growing dry wind a couple of times above the trees!

There’s another day predicted tomorrow to be in the very high 30’s degC range but the female chick will be due to fly off any time now, as long as she has the strength. We have staff keeping an eye out for the two male fledglings and at last light tonight one was seen high up in a pine tree near home. We are still to confirm a sighting of the second male to fly off again this afternoon.

The first two chicks flew off this morning but with mixed results. One has disappeared into the trees but the other was found floundering around on the ground at the base of the tower. Staff managed to coerce the chick into a towel and it appears there’s been no damage or injury. A climb up the tower, with brief photo opportunity and a quick roost intrusion to clean the viewing window, and the chick was reunited with remaining sibling. Both seem to have settled down again and appear to be happy to be reunited. Still no sign of the 1st chick outside yet but we’ve got all campus staff on the lookout for us.

An escapee, going back into the roost

The two most mature chicks are ready to go on their maiden flight while the third seems to be a way behind in fledging so will hopefully not jump when the other two try. They’re all spending their time out on the ledge now, stretching wings & legs, preening and waiting. It’s great weather for them to go at any stage as hopefully we’ll be able to catch them in the act.

Apologies for the loss of of the galleries over to the right – a plug-in software update failed and appears to have broken some links. A new attempt will be made later on tonight to reinstall.

One of the three chicks flexing

Yesterday we climbed the tower again to attempt a cleaning of the viewing windows but we’re now faced with very alert and easily alarmed chicks who insist on backing out to the wooden ledge to argue the case when a white rubbery glove enters the box to wipe our view back again. It’s ‘heart in mouth’ stuff because they’re not ready yet for any flight but are now at the age where they’re happy to play on the ledge, often facing inwards and sometimes tripping over themselves or being hit in the head when one wants to attempt wing stretching or flapping. Their frustration is growing with each day of being confined to such a small space.

Within the day the viewing window has turned dark again!

The world becoming a more interesting place

There is a definite difference between the three chicks now; two are well advanced in their fledging (left and right in the photo) and are more likely to hang over the ledge than the third chick (middle) which still has a way to go on both counts. Possibly the difference between male and female, but hard to tell with limited video footage at the moment!

Maybe less than a week to go before first flights (aged 34 days and 32 days respectively now) …

With the three furry blobs rapidly turning into scraggly teenage peregrines they’re quickly learning what’s safe and what’s not safe. What’s safe for them is mum or dad arriving with new carrion. What’s not safe for them is a mysterious white rubber gloved hand protruding into their nest to clean pooey windows. The cacophony of alarm calls is enough to be alert to but today an attempt was made to clean our camera windows and was beaten off after it was noticed one of the chicks was balanced out on the wrong side of the ledge, and indeed nearly lost balance. The roost was closed but the chicks, in their attentive state, weren’t going to leave the ledge side of the box so our vision remains “clouded” for now and a new strategy will be employed shortly. Instead photos from the ledge camera show our peregrine juniors to be developing fast and with any luck they’ll be ready to attempt test flights inside of 10 days (being approx 31 days old now).

The daring three teenagers

Note: furry objects on the ledge appear much smaller than they really are – at more than 300mm m(12″) they’re occupying most of the spare space in the nest now, and when either parent comes to visit they’re confined to the microwave transmission dish mounting around the corner (when the sun doesn’t make it too hot to perch on).

New videos – this is what we’re up against now when we venture in to do some housework; footage from the new camera showing daily life in the roost, and more close-in video of the (at that time) 26 day old chicks.

Apologies for the delay since the last post; we’ve been having some technical fun getting our new video camera running but I can report we have succeeded. The new pictures and video will appear quite different, in terms of colour etc, but the current battle is going to be to fit the three enormous chicks into the frame. Toughest of all they seem to enjoy sleeping and resting against the end walls where our cameras are fitted so quite often we can only see white fluff blowing in the breeze!

The new camera lens width is bigger than the current viewing windows so there’s a compromise with actual clear view but with the new roost sitting there all set to be installed when these three birds decide to fly off in the next 10 days or so we shouldn’t be too far away from providing a whole new peregrine world of vision shortly.

First new camera view; monsters on the prowl

We found out on Monday that our external raptor experts won’t be able to make it to campus this season to help band our feathery family so we will now wait until next season. A new discussion from within has been that we undergo our own training to legally allow us to band and handle raptors in the future. We may have missed the “window” now as the chicks have well-developing wing and tail feathers. More attempts at handheld video will be undertaken this afternoon.

The replacement IP camera and power supply have arrived and first tests show excellent video quality with improved recording capabilities. Attempts to “cross over” the old failing camera to this new model will happen today. We’re also looking at possibly re-jigging our back-end recording technology away from recent plans to further improve compatibility with university systems, so the proverbial “drawings on the napkins” are feverishly underway for re-design.

Day 20 for the two eldest chicks (Day 18 for the younger) and with wings beginning to form and stretch there’s little spare room in the old roost for our former furry blobs. At nearly dad’s height already (approx 300mm, or 12 inches) the available space to make one’s mark is limited but all three blobs appear to be very fit and healthy, no doubt helped by a pair of excellent hunting parents and a bountiful Spring dinner menu.

A roost entry was made this morning to clean the viewing and camera windows again but this time our avian teenagers kicked up a little fuss during the very careful intrusion, and before confirming the parents weren’t actually in there as well the calls were identified as young but maturing falcons. But as soon as dad arrived with a late breakfast the cries reverted back to pleading, hungry and helpless chicks again!

Latest videos can be viewed here … and here …; sorry about the quality but the art of peregrine roost window-cleaning is yet to be perfected without complaints from the tenants!… (with apologies to all sardines out there too!)

After a couple of days without vision a climb was made this evening to wait for mum to finish feeding the 3 blobs and then to depart for a few minutes before an attempt was made to head in to the roost to clean the well-poo’d windows! The camera was permanently on infrared lighting because the window was so dark with ’stuff’ but all was cleaned safely and exited without any incident, with camera rebooted again. Having just received a very big feed all three chicks were happy to just sit and watch, and allowed us to obtain further great close-up footage which can be viewed here …

Full as ticks after a big dinner

Rough size estimates now show them to be squatting at approx 200mm (8 inches) tall at 16 and 14 days old respectively. Which means there’s very little spare room left for either parent to take shelter, and the food supply has to be constant. After 20 minutes of being fed fairly fairly evenly they took a 5 minute break before coming back to finish off what was left for another 10 minutes, after mum had finished her fill. It appeared to be a pigeon this time. There will be relief when the new and much larger roost is finally swapped in to place after this current  family fly off in mid-November.

The first of the new cameras has arrived and will be tested this week before mounting and attaching to the video bank soon. We anticipate far better reliability and improved colour recordings. Talks are continuing with University IT staff to ascertain what coverage options we will be able to provide across the Internet soon.