Recent Happenings with Comet and Skye

Ten days after his return to the Downtown canyon, Skye is finally flying better. He’s still not doing many fancy maneuvers, but he’s going much longer distances and taking shorter rests between flights. Also, for the first time since his accident, he was seen sparring with his brother. While the air show they put now is not nearly as fast or as raucous as what they’d been doing before, it’s still encouraging to see. Unfortunately, Astrid has not gotten over her partial rejection of Skye and continues to haze him. On Saturday evening when Skye landed on top of the nest box, he was subjected to swooping raids by his mother. She wasn’t diving at him with the intensity that she greeted Orion’s return with, but none-the-less it was troubling to see. After a spate of diving, Astrid went over and perched on the State Office Building. A few minutes later Comet came in from the north and unceremoniously displaced his mother from her perch. It wasn’t clear if he did this in Skye’s defense or if he just did it for the hell of it. Soon after, Ares came in with prey and both Comet and Skye gave pursuit. All 4 birds were up together and Comet successfully took the prey in a mid-air transfer from his father. As Comet and Ares broke off from the group and returned to the State Building, Astrid took the opportunity to dive at Skye. He tried to land on the County Building roof but was too low and ended up grappling onto a very narrow strip below a window. He hung there like a huge bat for a minute or so and then made good solid flight over to the State Building where he landed safely on a high window ledge.

On Sunday Skye was seen making some longer flights, including one that took him all the way over to the Stanley Theater. Later in the day he was back on Hotel Utica, perched right next to Comet. The challenges for Skye remain daunting. His flying is improving, but it needs to be near 100% for him to become a successful hunter and to enable him to migrate south in a month’s time. His poor relationship with his mother is a complicating factor. Hopefully it will not stymie his progress.