By Rex Springston
Published: June 21, 2011
As people watched from the ground, a rare peregrine falcon crashed into a glassy downtown Richmond high-rise Monday and died not long after taking its first flight.
"One second it was flying. The next second it was dead, just like that," said Sergio Harding, a biologist with the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
Experts and volunteers had watched the bird since Thursday morning to try to ensure it made a safe first flight.
"Tragic is what it is," said Barbara Slatcher, a volunteer who watched the fatal flight with Harding. "The first flights are the most dangerous, which is why we do the fledge watch to begin with."
The falcon was released Thursday from a temporary pen beside its nest on a 21st-story ledge at Riverfront Plaza, 901 E. Byrd St.
Harding said he arrived downtown Monday about 10 a.m. to find that the falcon was no longer on that walkway ledge but on a window ledge about 15 feet down. The bird had to have flown to get there. That was great news.
Shortly after 11 a.m., the fledgling took off again, accompanied by its mother, and flew strongly until it disappeared behind another downtown building.
Just after noon, the falcon approached a glassy building northeast of Riverfront Plaza, Harding said. "It came into contact with the glass but recovered quite nicely."
A short time later, the falcon flew at high speed into the glass-sided James Center III building in the 1000 block of East Cary Street near Shockoe Slip, Harding said. "The bird flew into it, collided with it and dropped like a stone."
A state veterinarian examined the falcon and said it probably died instantly.
Pesticides nearly wiped out peregrine falcons in the 1950s and 1960s, so Virginia scientists are working to help the crow-sized predators build their numbers.
But city living is dangerous. To a falcon, glass that reflects sky and clouds apparently looks like more open space.
A pair of falcons has nested downtown since 2003. Another of their young crashed into a building and died in 2004.
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I'm hooked! And I've been saying that very same thing to everyone I work with: we are so lucky to be so close to these beautiful creatures.
