!!! Luna and Carina still hanging in!
July 22, 2013 - Toronto - Don Mills
Mark Nash Reports:
July 22nd - 2013
While it took some searching and the right timing, we were finally able to get a visual on Luna this evening. After speaking to Bruce late in the afternoon, (and getting his update on Carina which he had in his sights this afternoon), it was almost dark when Luna finally appeared, literally out of know where! It is worth noting that Bruce had watched Carina fill her crop with a large meal earlier on during his observations. He left Carina with a huge bulging crop as he observed her through his scope prior to his departure. He was not able to get a visual on Luna, but had Quest in his sights throughout his observations.
We spent most of the our early efforts locating Quest, and we finally found her, hiding out on the south side of the upper mid rooftop section of the Westin hotel, clearly hiding out of sight from the entire northern hemisphere.
As the diner hour moved in, Quest finally left her roosting spot and dropped down onto yet another lower elevation of the hotel and retrieved a large food cache (clearly visible through our bins as being a large white pigeon) that she had obviously killed and stashed at this lower elevation earlier on in the day. After she plucked it, she flew off to the north with the pigeon, with Marion and I in hot pursuit.
As Quest approached the south side of the Harlequin building - (just over the south side end of the rear parking lot), a juvenile suddenly appeared in the air, inn our view coming from the east and started to chase and vocalize at Quest. After several tight circles with the screaming juvenile in pursuit, Quest finally dropped the food mid air to the juvenile, who had no problem retrieving it prior to it falling to the ground. Although the juvenile struggled to gain its altitude, it eventually landed successfully on the upper roof top ledge of 240 Duncan Mill on the north side of Duncan Mill Road,, (the sister building to the 220 Duncan Mill nest building).
For almost 15 minutes, the juvenile mantled over the food prize, all along looking around behind her screaming at Quest who had landed on her usual roosting spot on the north west corner of the Harlequin building.
As the juvenile finally took flight, we were finally able to see her leg band colours and snap a few photos. It was only after reviewing the digital images on the camera that we were able to identify the juvenile as Luna, as she finally exposed the yellow tape on her USFW band.
Luna flew around the south side of 240, than over to Quest at 225 Duncan Mill Road. She landed, than disappeared down into the lower roof out of our view. Moments later, Quest flew off south, then appeared back in our view and landed on the leading edge (north side of the Harlequin building roof top) with Luna at her side. For several minutes, Quest picked and ate some of the pigeon only inches away from Luna,, (who continued to scream at her the entire time). Eventually, Quest started to beak feed Luna for several minutes.
Quest then flew off to the north out of our view, and minutes later Luna took flight and followed her. Believing that the two had flown over to the nest building at 220, we held our position in the upper parking area between 220 and 240.
Moments again passed and the both birds appeared in the air again and landed on the north east corner of the upper roof top leading ledge of the Harlequin building. By this time, it was getting too dark to get any real decent photos of the two, but I did manage to snap a few before we lost our light altogether. As darkness fell, Luna flew off to the north east out of our sight, with Quest having flown off to the south out of our sight.
Sadly, the photos are not anything to brag about, but the poor lighting and back-lit skies made it difficult to anything decent.
(OK, most of the poor quality photos clearly show my novice photographic skill sets) :-(
Marion and I finally packed it in shortly before 10pm and headed for home to get some diner ourselves.
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