I was just outside here and took a peek at the nest ledge and O'Connor is preening quietly on the cam and then 2 skyreach guys in red t-shirts peek over the rooftop!  I wish I had a camera, that's a sight I never thought I'd see.  She didn't even flinch     She's a different bird when there are no kids arounds..dare I say she's 'sweet'    (sorry Tracy!)

I was suspicious today when I saw the skyreach folks on site, looks like my hunch was correct

September 12, 2012 - Etobicoke - Sun Life Centre
CPF Postmaster Reports:

Sept. 11th - 2012
I’m being told that we will have some very exciting news to report. After a very long time, we will soon have an Etobicoke Sun Life web camera image back up and running with the addition of some very new technologies being added, new partners AND some other very welcomed and long over due nest tray replacement!!

Without saying tooo much and letting the cat out of the bag so to speak, (as we don’t want to jinx the processes), you are all going to be delighted to see what we have in store for the Etobicoke Sun Life Centre peregrines.

Oops, did I say nest cams?

You will have to wait and see. We are waiting for a ride via Skyreach Window cleaning who have one again pledged their support and expertise and agreed to get us to the nest ledge next week to get the jobs done.

In addition to dealing with the web camera’s, we will also be replacing the nest tray and new pea-gravel that is much needed. The old nest tray we installed is has finally starting to rot away,, (well, its been up there since 1997,, as has the old nest camera).

Much of the pea-gravel has been flicked out of the nest tray over the years by the annual scraping of the nest bowl by 15 years of producing adults and many hatchlings doing the same.

This summers visit to the nest ledge to extract the hatchlings for banding showed us that the wood drainage slats in the nest tray are also exposed to the elements due to the depleted pea-gravel and also now rotting away due to the exposure to the moisture over the past 15 years.

Stay tuned for some really exciting news and views out in Etobicoke!!

Maybe Orion is responding to nature's migration call.  He was born later so to us it seems sooner than it should.  

I miss him too

DotCa vanished into thin air once he learned to hunt successfully on his own it seemed to me.  And as Frank likes to remind me ... I flipped out and thought something had happened to him because he left so soon compared to his brothers. 

Then a few months later we had someone send us photos of a young DC north of Toronto in the trees.  Even then I worried cause I thought he looked thin    and here we are today watching him on cam!

Maybe Orion will run into those 2 girls from Buffalo and have some 'singing' partners to travel the world with 

 

There are a lot of falcon purists that don't support the cross breeding that was done - they consider it a pollution of the original North American falcon genes (the Anatum)

I have to wonder if they would have been happier to have "pure" genetics in the only anatums left in the natural history museum along side the passenger pigeon.

As I understand it there were so few anatums left there would have been far too much close relative interbreeding to restore a healthy population.  I believe most captive bred birds were from a very few ancestors. And we can see that the anatum traits are still strong. Time will tell if it becomes more prevalent.

Now the cross breeding between peregrines & gyrfalcons is another issue altogether...

Excellent rebuttal kitty! 

I've never seen any salmon coloring on Jack, which doesn't mean he doesn't have it somewhere but with no cam for several years now I pretty much see him only from the ground and he always looks 'teflon white' to me.  It will be interesting when the cam comes back to look at his features in more detail now that I know a bit more about the different sub species.

I was surprised, happily so, to see DC has some salmon coloring.  I just assumed he was like Jack.  So a very pleasant surprise to say the least!  

Poor DotCA, he does look a bit rough doesn't he?  He's still got the same 'deer in the headlights' look his dad sports though so easy for me to recognize him  

Both DC and Beauty have a heavy strain of Anatum falcon in them as is evidenced by their salmon coloring which is unique to that sub-species.  Beauty in fact can be traced back through her parents to one of the females that was originally part of the falcon release program here in Canada.  I think her coloring is gorgeous especially in the morning light  

There are many different sub-species of pefa but Anatum's are in my opinion the most beautiful. The web cams don't do the coloring justice, it's really quite stunning and very special to see now a days due to the cross breeding of species over the years.

There are a lot of falcon purists that don't support the cross breeding that was done - they consider it a pollution of the original North American falcon genes (the Anatum) and over the years many old time birders that came to visit our site were stunned to see Angel's salmon coloring because they feared that the Anatums had gone extinct or had that feature bred out of them.  I don't know enough about falcon genetics to really have an opinion on this other than what I've read but Rochester having Beauty here is very special and given DC's Anatum strain, little Orion is made even more special genetically speaking at least.

Yay..thank you!  Even if he was with the other woman  , at least he's safe too!

No one has seen my DotCa since he was chasing out that other falcon yesterday?

Not specifically reported-but Orion did chase an adult off FCT in the evening and we know Dot was on Orion duty yesterday.

Thanks Kitty, I will keep my eyes peeled for word of him.  I'm sure Beauty would let us know if something is up but I feel better when the watchers have seen him 

No one has seen my DotCa since he was chasing out that other falcon yesterday?

That's our boy...Go Orion 

That's wonderful news!!  Another M&K descendant flying the skies 

I saw him live waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back when he was doing The River tour - best concert hands down I've ever been to.  The guy gives 120% and I was lucky Clarence Clemons was still around back then too.  If you get the chance to go see him live..do it, spend the money - you won't regret it.

 

 He get's more handsome with each passing day