Lucky falcon chick rescued in downtown South Bend

[Donna]

This story was originally posted at 2:09 p.m. June 21, 2010.
SOUTH BEND — One of the peregrine falcon chicks growing up in downtown South Bend took his first flight today and also was rescued for the first time.

Carole Riewe, retired naturalist and raptor rehabilitator, said the male chick took off from the nest box on top of County-City Building late this morning and landed on the JMS Building.

But the skies then got darker and darker and the wind came up, Riewe said.

"He decided he didn't like where he was," she noted.

So he took off and landed in the street in front of Buffalo Wild Wings on Washington Street.
Riewe has plenty of employees of downtown businesses trained to look for falcon chicks on the ground. So by the time she, Stacey Silvers and Brian Davidson arrived there, restaurant employees were gathered around making sure no cars hit the wayward chick.

They got him in a raptor rescue box, where he was taking a nap at Riewe's house for the afternoon.

She said she and falconer Mike Jones will return the chick to the nest box after dark tonight when the parents, Guinevere and Zephyr, have gone to their roosting places, usually on the Tower Building.

Riewe said rescued chicks are usually put on top of the five-story part of County-City Building, where the parents can see and feed them from the top of the building.

But with storms predicted, she and Jones are afraid the chick will have a hard time and may even try to fly again.

Riewe said the falcons don't normally fly at night so the male should stay put for the night once they get him back in the nest box.

All they have to do is sneak him back into the nest box without getting his sister so upset she does something she shouldn't, like trying to fly in the dark.