Updated with video clips – see below!
After six weeks of rehabilitation, we received word late last week that Jemison was hunting & killing her own food and flying competently in a 180-foot (55 meter) flight cage. Since she was doing so well, the rehabber and DEC biologists determined that she was ready for release.

So at lunchtime today, members of the Genesee Valley Audubon Society and the Rochester Falconcam met the DEC’s Mike Allen at the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, about 45 miles (72 km) east of Rochester. Alert readers may recall that Montezuma was the site of Mariah’s release following her stint in rehab last year.

After picking up refuge Manager Bill Stewart, the group took a short trip along Montezuma’s wildlife drive and found a convenient spot away from highway traffic. Mike and Bill placed Jemison’s wooden carrier on the gravel and the Audubon Society’s June Summers released the lid. Jemison took off right away, flying close by Falconcam member Jim Pisello before climbing high over the wetland.

Jim provided some pictures of the event. You can view them by clicking the picture at the left. Falconcam members Kathy Olney and Carol Phillips took pictures and videos too. Here are a couple of video clips courtesy of Carol Phillips:

Jemison is released from the carrier

Jemison flying

As Carol noted, this was the best outcome we could hope for. Everyone at the release agreed that Jemison was flying well, with no trace of an injury. She gained altitude before soaring away to the north and west. Will she return to Rochester, or strike out for some new destination? We can only wonder where her travels will take her. Wherever it is, we know the good wishes of her many fans will go with her.

It truly is a group effort to make sure that these young peregrines have the best opportunity to lead successful lives. The Rochester Falconcam is grateful for the dedication of Mike Allen, Jenny Landry, Barb Loucks and everyone at the DEC & the rehab staff who took care of Jemison and returned her to flight status. Special thanks also to Dr. Balonek and all the folks at the East Ridge Animal Hospital; Dr. Parsons, Gary and the staff at the Black Creek Wildlife Center as well as the Rochester Animal Control; and Bill Stewart and everyone at the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge. And of course, we want to acknowledge the many volunteers who keep an eye on Jemison and all the Rochester falcons year after year. Your efforts are all appreciated!

As we reported previously reported, Jemison’s recovery has been going very well. She’s been moved to a larger flight cage so that she can exercise her wings in preparation for an eventual release. The rehab specialist taking care of Jemison says that she continues to be feisty and she takes lots of baths in the water bowl provided for her!

We don’t yet know when Jemison will be ready to be released, but we do know that she won’t be released back here in Rochester. The biologists at the DEC have determined that Jemison’s safety could be jeopardized if she’s released in Rochester because so much time has passed since she was injured and taken away. It’s likely that by now Archer and Beauty wouldn’t recognize Jemison if she were returned here. If the adults were to treat her as an intruder she could be re-injured or at least forced out of the territory under unfriendly circumstances. We know everyone was hoping for a different outcome, but releasing Jemison away from Rochester will give her the best chance for safely making it through these next few months, which are crucial to her development into a full-fledged adult. We’re in close contact with the rehabber and the DEC so we’ll make sure to get more information as it becomes available.

Jemison’s release is still some way off though, so in the meantime here are a couple more pictures with those beautiful falcon wings outstretched…

According to the latest from the rehabber taking care of Jemison she is beginning to heal. The broken bone in her shoulder is re-calcifying. Calcium is essential for bone strength so this is very good news. She’s feeding herself, another good sign.

The next stop for Jemison is a two-week stint in a large flight cage where she can exercise her wings. Then more x-rays will be taken to see how things stand.

We’ve heard from the rehabber taking care of Jemison. She’s doing very well, and she’s scheduled for an x-ray tomorrow. The radiograph should give them an idea of how well Jemison’s broken bone has healed. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear the results of the x-ray.

June Summers, President of the Genesee Valley Audubon Society, and Rochester Falconcam member Carol Phillips paid a visit to Jemison and provided the picture above, along with a report of her progress so far. She continues to be feisty and is eating everything given to her. Jemison also enjoyed the cooling spray of water that you can see in the picture at the left.

All hopes are that her injured shoulder will heal quickly. Her wing continues to return to a normal position, and another rehabber who looked at Jemison couldn’t even detect an injury, so that’s very good news. We’ll be sure to keep you updated as to Jemison’s progress.

The DEC has made arrangements to transport Jemison to the same rehab facility outside of Syracuse, New York, which was so instrumental in nursing Mariah back to health. They have over 30 years’ experience treating falcons and returning them back to the skies. Their facility includes a very large flight cage where Jemison will be able to practice flying.

The Rochester Falconcam wants to extend our sincere and heartfelt thanks to Gary and all the staff at Black Creek Wildlife Center, and especially to Dr. Parsons. Also to Terry and the good folks at Wild Wings for supplying some falcon-appropriate food on short notice. Our gratitude also goes to Dr. Gerald Balonek at the East Ridge Animal Hospital, where Jemison was taken by Rochester Animal Control. Without the selflessness of all involved, Jemison’s outlook could have been much worse.

We’re also grateful to the DEC’s Mike Allen, Jenny Landry, and Barb Loucks for their advice and assistance, and to the Rochester Police Dept. and Rochester Animal Control, both for Jemison’s initial rescue and for letting MAK, our on-scene watcher at the time, know of Jemison’s condition.

And finally, a huge “thank you” to our volunteer fledge watchers, who have spent many hours on the “front lines” keeping an eye on all of the falcons, especially our newest flyers. It is their dedication that helps to ensure positive outcomes for the fledglings in Rochester, and gives them the best opportunity to lead successful lives as masters of the sky.

Photo courtesy of Jim Pisello

Every so often we get notes from viewers asking how they can catch up on what happened to Mariah this year. Rather than reading through pages of Imprints posts, we’ve added a new category called Mariah Rehab. Click it on the right side of your screen to display all of the posts about Mariah’s injury and her rehabilitation. \

The eleven posts are in reverse-chronological order so you’ll have to go back a couple of pages (just use the Previous Entries link) to start at the beginning. We hope this will make it a little easier for those viewers who might just be joining us.

Most of our readers probably know by now that Mariah was released from her rehabilitation a couple of weeks ago. Before leaving the veterinary facility near Syracuse where she’d been recuperating the DEC’s Mike Allen took a few pictures to show just how completely she’d healed

          

Wildlife officials at the NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation took her to the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge about 40 miles (64km) east of Rochester. As she flew northward Mike Allen got this picture of her taking wing

Before letting her go, Mariah got a nice bit of new jewelry in the form of an aluminum US Fish and Wildlife band. To make her stand out from the falcon crowd, Mariah’s band was tricked out with blue tape and a yellow racing stripe

Since her release, she found her way back to Rochester. If you’ve been keeping up with the reports of our on-site watchers in the FalconWatch blog, you’ll know that she’s been spending a lot of time in the Genesee River gorge below the High Falls. Check back often for the latest updates!

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Speaking of updates, the news on Archer and Beauty is that they’ve apparently moved from the narrow ledge on the Midtown Plaza Tower. It looks like they abandoned any eggs they may have laid. Our watchers haven’t witnessed any nesting-like behavior from the pair for the past several days now. Whether they did lay eggs that failed or didn’t lay any is something we may never learn. The ledge where they’d been spending their time is very narrow and without a bucket truck or some similar conveyance physical access to the ledge is nearly impossible.

So where’d they move to? As it turns out, Archer and Beauty headed a few blocks west and across the river, ending up at the Times Square Building. Astute readers will recall that this is the location where we installed one of our nest boxes this past winter, and outfitted it with a few cameras. We never turned them on because frankly there wasn’t much to be seen. At first watchers reported that the falcons were only landing on the corners of the building, but before too long we began to see them moving toward the nest box, and even going inside.

Yesterday evening Rochester Falconcam team member FalKenn Martinez was at the site working to get the cameras up and running. There are still some technical problems to solve, but now that we know there’s activity at the nest box we’re moving into high gear. While he was working on the high-resolution Main camera, both Archer and Beauty showed up at the nest box! Ken was able to grab a couple of pictures of them, which got stored on the camera controller’s hard disk. Since we’re not yet connected to the Internet there’s no way he could transmit the pictures, but he did the next best thing, snapping pictures right off the monitor screen with his cell phone camera!

     

The image quality leaves a little to be desired, but who cares!?! Archer looks an awful lot like Kaver, doesn’t he? It’s those good genes of his! And that second picture appears to show them bowing to each other. That could indicate that they’re pair bonding. It’s late in the season, but these two are young and healthy, and it’s just possible that they could go through another courtship and mating cycle, and even lay eggs!

Could we be looking at another clutch in the making? It may be that our fledge watchers will yet have an opportunity to practice their skills on the streets of downtown Rochester. We’ll keep working to get the Times Square cameras on-line so that we can all keep an eye on Archer and Beauty at their “new” home.

We have some very good news from our friend Mike Allen at the DEC. First a note released to the Rochester Watchers from June Summers, GVAS.

“Mariah was released on Tue., May 26 at approximately 3:30 p.m. in the Montezuma Wetland Complex. She is in good health and headed North upon release. She has new bling, a US Fish and Wildlife band on her right leg which has been covered with blue tape with a yellow racing stripe in the middle. Carol Phillips commented that, “Mariah is free to be a Peregrine again.” Carol is right, Mariah is back where she belongs in the wild. So please keep your eyes open when you are downtown.”

and this from Mike Allen………………..

“She was released on the Montezuma wetlands complex at approximately 3:30 PM on Tuesday, May 26th. We chose that site (approximately 45 miles from home) because of the diverse food availability there. I would not be surprised if she might take a day or 2 to re-acclimate to the wild before making her next move. As far as the release itself was concerned we were almost looking for smoke from her tail feathers as she came out of the transfer box like her tail was on fire so I can honestly say that she neither hesitated nor struggled to fly..”

Mariah has been banded with a USFW silver band. Mike covered the band in blue tape with a yellow racing stripe. This will make it easier for the Rochester Watchers to ID her if she returns to Rochester.

We here at the Rochester Falconcam would like to thank Mike, the rehabbers, including Gary the original rehabber that was there that fateful Easter Sunday morning, the DEC and all the folks that were involved.

Oh, and by the way, Mike has shared a few pictures with us that I will share with you soon.

Jess

p.s. As far as we know Quest is doing very well. We’ll be posting about her travels soon. Stay tuned!

A Very Important Update!

Mariah arrived at the Kodak Tower sometime Friday morning (5/29/09). Watchers working in nearby buildings reported an adult Falcon flying around the Kodak Tower around 9:00 am.

The Rochester Falcon Watchers that arrived downtown were greeted by a beautiful sight. An adult Falcon flying around the Kodak Tower, soaring over the gorge to chase the pigeons on the High Falls Brewery, chasing Crows off of the lower Kodak buildings and landing in very familiar places. A split wing tip was seen.

Later that evening, scopes were trained on the Peregrine Falcon and a blue band with a yellow racing stripe was seen. Thanks to Mike Allen from the DEC for this thoughtful addition.

Mariah is home.

Jess

Mike Allen from the DEC forwarded this very positive update from Mariah’s caretakers.

“The doctor was here today and we got a very good look at Mariah’s wing and neck. All the scabs on her wing have dropped off and she has beautiful skin that has grown where they were. Her neck has a big scab that is all dried up and is ready to just fall off. The skin underneath looks great. Mariah’s feathers are in perfect condition. When the time comes, we expect it will be a wonderful release. I love these happy ending stories.”

Very good news!

Jess

Mike Allen sends this report from the Veterinary technician caring for Mariah:

The Dr. was here yesterday and checked her over thoroughly. Her wing web is healing nicely and the neck wound is totally scabbed over. We trimmed off some of that flap of loose skin in the top of the wing and it is healing underneath. He will be back next Tuesday and said after that Mariah will be ready to go into an outdoor mew to stretch her wings and exercise.

Yet more good news!