Exciting watch!! Sacajawea completes her second flight and Grace fledges–not once but twice. Sacajawea spent her night on the ledge of the 15th floor of the tower. At 5:45 am she makes her 2nd flight–flying east toward the High Falls smoke stack and circles back landing on the southeast corner of the top of building 10 (adjacent to the Kodak tower). She could be seen walking and hopping along the eastern edge while flapping her wings. Ananta is roaming in the playpen area flapping her wings and disappearing behind the west wall every once in a while only to reappear. At 6:00 am Grace hops onto the main camera and for the next 15 minutes she hopped back and forth to the perch of the nestbox and back onto the main camera.

At 6:20 Linn joins Grace on the main camera. Not much room for flapping wings! Mariah is positioned on the northeast ledge of the 15th floor of the tower keeping and eye on Sacajawea. Kaver is nowhere to be seen. Around the same time Mariah takes off on a stoop diving hard and fast for the gorge. Suddenly, Kaver appears out of the High Falls stack following Mariah on the stoop, also in a fast dive with wings tucked. Mariah returns with a successful catch and lands next to Sacajawea leaving the meal for her.

As Sacajawea can be seen tearing into the prey (feathers flying from the rooftop and fresh blood dripping down the wall of building 10), Grace took her first flight! She hopped off the main camera wings flapping and flew south over the Bru building causing quite the panic among the observers because she flew out of sight and was headed toward the downtown area. There were four seasoned observers and myself (my first official watch). Everyone scurried across Platt Street and into the Kodak parking light to try to keep and eye on her. With in seconds she reappeared heading North toward the tower gaining altitude and flying strong for her first flight. She clumsily tried to land on the railing above the playpen but missed it and landed on the vertical lattice in the arch above the playpen on the east wall. As she was clinging to the lattice she climbed to the top of the lattice and then hopped onto the ledge of the northeastern column in the arch.

Mariah retuned form flight and landed on the northeastern corner of the tower where she could keep an eye on both Grace and Sacajawea. In the next half hour or so Mariah and Kaver made two more stoops, both unsuccessful, and Mariah chased off a pigeon that flew too close to the tower. Around 7:30 Mariah gently glided over building 10 and circled it a number of times trying to encourage Sacajawea to take fight. But to no avail.

For the next two hours activity decreased among the eyases and adults with an occasional fly-by of Kaver and Mariah watching her girls. At 9:25 Kaver drops off food at the playpen and Ananta has it all to herself. The other three begin wailing with renewed interest at spotting Kaver. At 9:45 Kaver gently glides by Grace circling a number of times until Grace follows him toward the smoke stacks making her 2nd flight.She flew strong again and landed on the southeast corner of the roof of the tower behind the Kodak sign (20th floor). She slid a few feet down the slanted metal roof onto a flat walkway at the bottom of the roof. Safe spot! Mariah perched herself a few feet way from Grace where she could keep and eye on her and Sacajawea. Then Kaver tried to entice Sacajawea to fly again by employing the same technique he used successfully for Grace. No luck. Quite the exciting first time watch.

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