Larry O

To put it succintly, Callidora’s lessons began in earnest today.

When Cleo & I arrived downtown, Carol P, Dawn (& Maggie), Don and Suzette were at Falcon Watch Central by Thompson – Reuters. Bringing me up to speed, they reported that A & B & C were all on the north side of OCSR in the shade.

The watch stayed quiet until a brief glimpse of Archer overhead. Shortly after that, Beauty appeared overhead – but only briefly. Then shortly after that, Callidora came from OCSR and flew towards TSR. Her flying looked more robust, more steady … more confident. With any new juvie, her landing lacked grace. It seems that the drag introduced by dropping the talons on landing interrupts the air stream upon which they depend. This change in aeronautics obviously disrupts their performance until they gain experience.

Once again all settle down, until …

Archer performed some flight lessons for Calli. She stayed on TSR while Archer soared and stooped and did fly-bys.

Archer and Beauty came back. We think Archer came in first, but pretty quickly someone said “Three falcons in the air”. Every one scanned around and we all confirmed that A & B & C were on the north side of TSR and in flight.

The important thing is that they were flying together.

The first maneuver was an aerial circle by the three. They performed three or four loops of the circle. The flying was tight enough that it could be said that no one was in the lead.

From the circle they broke off so that Callidora was flying solo with Archer and Beauty introducing her to talon tag. It was amazing to see the parents come in to their daughter, approach and just delicately enough show Calli how to stop flight, perform the tag and regain aeronautical control. Beauty and Archer each took turns (at least two apiece) before breaking off the schooling lesson.

Callidora returned to TSR (NW west). A & B disappeared, but later Beauty came in with food which she put down by Calli. Callidora raced to the food and Beauty took off again.

I may have forgotten some of the details but it was a fantastic 10 minutes of activity from the family.

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