Thanks ladies, this is my first loss on site and I have to say it's a bit harder than I thought it would be.  I'd like to think our sweet girl is soaring the skies with William now and watching over their brothers and sisters. 

I'm glad Kate checked out okay Anne, hopefully she gets a good nights rest and gets a nice dinner.  Thank you for keeping us up to date.

Wonderful report Anne, my talons and toes are crossed that all the kids stay high and safe!  Great job!

I never tire of hearing that story, just beautiful..thank you Carol.

 

I really think the non feeding was cause they were trying to coax them to fly and be able to lift off.  But what the heck do I know?!

For sure Jeanne, they use food as a motivator to train them. It's really no different than when keepers train zoo animals or when you train your pet, you use food to reward good behaviour or to get them to learn a new behaviour.

I expect if they just fed them constantly, they'd just nap and not want to go anywhere like most kids    

[Cinnamon seen feeding!]

New update just posted from Harry:

Cinnamon seen feeding!
June 29, 2011 - Toronto - Sheraton Centre
Harry Crawford Reports:

At 7:30am, Cinnamon was on the old portion of the Bell building and
Kate was on the penthouse of 120 Adelaide.  As I was moving through
the courtyard, Sunshine came screaming in from the south west and
disappeared from view.  From 23 at 9am, Cinnamon was feeding on the
south west corner of the roof area of the National Bank at York and
Adelaide.  Just to his west was Rhea Mae, keeping a sister [to her
west] from grabbing the food.  The feeding took about 20 minutes and
then Cinnamon took off.  Rhea Mae went over and started to feed on
the left-overs.  I went down to street level and by the time I got
there, the sister was feeding on the scraps.

Linda arrived and we went up to 23 only to find no birds in view.
We then went to King St. to see the south views of the nearby
buildings - still nothing in view.  I think the birds are moving
around more and could also be trying to get out of the wind [Zoe] as
it was quite strong.

I personally (and this is my opinion only but based on my fledge watches) don't think they would abandon the kids at this point, had there been something wrong they would have known at birth as we've sometimes seen on cam when a parent stops feeding a baby and they perish on cam.  I've seen females fledge at day 50 and boys fledge at day 48...it is actually not that unusual.  The reason they're devoting so much attention to Sunshine at this point is because she has caught on so fast and it and will enable them to focus on the other two when they are ready.  It may look like the parents don't care but from my observations, the parents always know where the kids and once the kids advance the parents step in with more support.  To a falcon parent, the job isn't done until they teach the kids to hunt for themselves, it's hard wired into them to do this.    There have also been some famous cases..like Polly in Montreal where the parents allowed her to stay well beyond the normal time frame due to her injury.  

I know it can be hard to watch, there have been many times I've cursed our pair here and yelled at them for seemingly ignoring certain juvies in trouble but they always proved my fears wrong.  Mackenzie, our 2009 male is now nesting at Burlington and I can tell you even Bruce thought he'd never make it - in fact one night he told me to prepare myself to find him dead because he had been gone so long and likely didn't have what it took..I tell you I was in tears and barely slept that night and the next day Mac made the flight of his life right back to the nest ledge - I was standing in the road cheering him on with tears running down my face.  He spent over a week in trouble without food and parents, was rescued 3 times and was well behind the other 2 and now Mark and everyone down there is raving about him and saying they've never seen a falcon hunt like he can so don't give in to despair.  You're tired from fledge watch and you want them to succeed so much and it can be difficult to see the bigger picture or even like what you're seeing at times but hang in there.. The fact that Kate and Cin have made it this far is is a good sign, some kids are just slower picking up but once they 'get it' it sticks.  It's hard for us humans to understand the lessons being taught to the falcons but they are birds of prey and they need to be tough to survive and what we perceive as being cruel is in reality a lesson in survival for them.

Alot of the nestboxes out West have have sliding walls so when the falcon goes into the box they quickly lower the front door and open the back and remove the transmitter.

It was done on cam with the Genesee male actually which is how we know- well we saw the door go down with him (and his transmitter on) in the box and when it came back up 5 minutes later his transmitter was gone 

There are other ways however I've been told to refrain from publicly discussing those methods so as not to encourage any unsavory types that may be lurking around and looking for info like that.  Given that we are reading of people shooting pefa's in the news, I can understand why that information needs to be kept private.  Sadly not everyone is like us and has their best interests at heart.

She's just adorable.  Too bad we couldn't give her a brother or sister to keep her company.

K so she was before Quest. I had a hard time looking for Transmitter Falcons a while ago. Hard to find on the net. So much info out there but usually all brings me back to Quest and poor "Homeless".  Which nest had the 2 transmitter falcons at one time, was this Alberta? I know I posted it a while ago but for the life of me, I can't find it.

Yes at the Genesee Power Plant in Alberta, female (hers fell off) and male's who was just removed a few weeks ago as he arrived home late the past 2 years and the female had laid eggs with a new male.  He chased off both males and is now raising 1 eyases.  Only 1 of the eggs hatched and it is the offspring of the other males - Gord took the eggs out to incubate them offsite as the territorial dispute was still on going and he was afraid the eggs would be damaged so he replaced them with dummy eggs.  He then returned them to the nest a few weeks ago and 1 lone eyases hatched.  Hopefully next year the male will come home on time, the first year these two had a successful nest without issue.

Donna, also look here - this is the Artic Pefa project site called Southern Cross.  It was done out of Washington and if you dig deep into the site there are some very interesting observations.  For example, one year they found a 'pair' that had migrated together, another year a female and her offspring were found in Chile together and she was stil providing food for it.  Quite fascinating!  The team travels to Chile and bands the faclons down there!

http://www.frg.org/SC_PEFA.htm

This is Miss Edmonton, aka Transmitter Girl that I mentioned, she was also known as Miss Homeless as she lost this nest site to another female a few years ago when she started coming home later and later in the season.  This is her first year without the transmitter since they put it on her.

Gord Court is one of the most knowledgeable biologists on pefa's in Canada.  He's also one of the most humble.  This week he placed 2 eyases (1 from the Bell Tower if you watch that cam) into the nest of the Red Deer falcons that were incubating eggs for something like 54 days.  He took two little males from other nest sites where they were born later and not able to compete for food amongst their older siblings and gave them the opportunity to be cared for by a pair that seemed desperate for offspring - he's done this many times in the past at other sites.   I've read several of his articles that are posted in top science magazines and blogs and boy were they imformative.  He was also involved in the orginal Wainwright project to help repopulate the species in Canada.  He's studied them in the wild and in urban centres.  

I was introduced to his work through Bev (yes the Bev that posts here sometimes) as she knows him personally and helps him out with the Clinical Sciences site and Miss Edmonton's new site - Weber and several others.  

I know out on the East Coast of Canada in the Maritimes, many years ago they also had a transmitter project but I dont' know what the outcome was, if any ever reproduced successfully.

Is Quest really the first transmitter fitted falcon to reproduce?  

Here's what I know: Miss Edmonton was the first falcon fitted with a transmitter to reproduce out West.  Her transmitter was removed last year as they found it may be interfering with her migration and causing her to return home later than usual in previous years.  There is also a project that started in 2007 on Artic Peregrine falcons that migrated to Chile each year and several of them were banded and one of the most famous and successful in producing offspring is called Island Girl.  

These projects all seem to operate in silos so it's really hard to say 'who was truly first' in North America, I like to research things when I'm interested in finding something out and that's the only reason I know of these two other projects.  There are many other transmitter fitted faclon projects that have been done over the years but I'd have to delve deeper to find out if there is records of them producing offsping.  As far as I know Quest is the first in Eastern Canada but I don't know everything so take that with a grain of salt 

Love your photos Kat, what a sweetie she is.  I'm a big fan of the pantaloons too..   I can't believe how big she is..checking in on her now on cam and she seems to be chit chatting to mom ...putting in her dinner menu request no dbout 

 

Isn't she a little early to be doing this? 

No my guys generally jump out around this time or earlier and run down to the other end of the ledge.  We have the same type of box and ledge at Etobicoke.  She sure is a beauty