LATEST NEWS

Saturday at 5:00 PM, Leda became the 2nd of our Utica Peregrine Falcon chicks to fledge. Her maiden flight took her around Grace Church and the State Office Building. She finally landed on the roof of the Adirondack Bank. Of the 3 chicks Leda was the most prepared for flight. Over the past few days she had put in a considerable amount of practice flying from the nest box perch to the top of the box. In the next 2 hours she made a few more flights around the 2 block area before landing on a window ledge high on the west face of the State Office Building. There she appeared to settle down for the night. Meanwhile, Indi remained at the nest box and did a lot of serious wing flapping. Perhaps spurred by her sister’s success and her parents coaxing, it looked like she was going to fledge as well, but she stayed put. The Fledge Watch volunteers were fine with that decision, having already had enough excitement for one evening.

According to a report that Matt received from the rehabilitator Tres is doing well. He still needs to be examined by the Veterinarian but he ate very well and showed aggression towards the rehabilitator (a good sign).

After an accident on Friday evening, Tres was taken to a wildlife rehabilitator. He was captured just after 8:00 PM after landing in a road and having a vehicle pass over him. Although there were no obvious injuries to the young falcon, his behavior indicated that all was not right and he should be examined by experts. I will post an update once his condition has been ascertained. Meanwhile, as of last night, Indi and Leda were still staying close to the nest box, though not spending much time actually inside of it. Leda has been content to “hop-fly” back and forth between the box’s perch and roof, while Indi prefers just to scoot over onto the window ledge on the east side of the box.

On the morning of June 26th, Tres became the first ever Peregrine Falcon chick known to fledge in Utica and Oneida County. Hopefully he will recover and be able to return soon.

Here are some photo highlights from last night’s Fledge Watch by Wildlife Photographer David Cesari:

 

Tres made the journey to the State Office Building early this morning. We are unsure if the flight was in one or more segments but he made it safely from the Adirondack Bank Building over to his current perch on a window ledge of the State Office Building. Will Leda join him? Come down and check out all the action!!