It was a crisp, cool October (I mean July) morning, when I arrived on the bridge for my watch. Dan, as usual, was already at his post on the bridge keeping tabs of the whereabouts of all the birds. He updated the locations of all 4 juvies and Mariah, with Kaver off doing his thing, wherever. Jean arrived as our watches coincided–much playful flying by all 4 juvies as the sun was cresting over the downtown buildings and casting its light on the mist of the waterfalls and shining an iridescent hue thru the feathers of the juvies as thy passed in front of the “red ball”. Jean will report in more detail as I will report from 8:00-9:30 am. Also arriving for morning watch were Larry, Kathy, Jim, Joyce, Danna and Carol.

8:30 am – After some rare morning down time, all 4 juvies took to the air almost simultaneously for an extended time of the most magnificent acrobatic flying this watcher has witnessed. The 4 juvies were playing talon tag together taking turns as though they were playing the childhood game “you’re it”. They were flying high above the falls and then suddenly dropping altitude pulling up a few feet short of the Genesee River, continuing to speed horizontally a few feet above the water as if they were off-shore race boats following the coarse of the river north, flying swiftly under the bridge. No sooner than as we all rushed across to observe them exiting from under the bridge they began pulling up high enough to fly just above our heads going in the opposite direction in pursuit of each other.

As they paired off, Jean and I noticed one falcon land an the east bank cliff behind a patch of grass but we could not ID the bird as it was hidden from our view by the grasses. The rest of this report comes from the contributions of Joyce, Carol, and Dana whom were on the observation deck to get closer photos of the juvies acrobatics. The bird that Jean and could not ID was Mariah. She left a nice big morsel of food on a nice ledge for her girls. No wonder the game suddenly ended–all 4 girls landed where the food was and, much to everybody’s surprise, they shared it!!

As breakfast was being consumed, Mariah began diving a few feet above the heads of Dana, Carol, Joyce, giving off her warning cries. The juvies kept on feasting together and Mariah continued circling overhead calling out as if she were signaling that danger was present. They (Dana, Joyce and Carol) surmised that Mariah was upset that a pet dog (who was lying down on leash and mellow as could be) was the source of the danger to her babies. As the pet’s master walked her dog to her car, Mariah circled overhead to keep the pair in sight and then landed on the corner of the brewery building to observe. Her warning cries seemed to decrease in volume as the dog and master got further away from her babies. Jean could see Mariah reposition herself until the dog hopped into the car and door was shut. Immediately, she ceased her cries!

Lessons to be learned: Mariah is the queen of her domain. Her juvies were vulnerable because they were on the ground (even though they were on a steep bank) and a canine was in the area. In nature, this species is a predator of juvies or injured adults on the ground. She was not only warning the juvies of the nearby danger but she was also teaching us a lesson. She does not want her girls to become comfortable with any creature that will be harmful to them when they are in their chosen territory away from her. It was if she was communicating to all of us that we should know better. Thanks Mariah, now we know.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 2nd, 2007 at 10:12 AM and is filed under Fledge Watch Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.