Mayo Clinic Peregrine Falcon Program

Life As a Fledgling-Stages of Flight School

Zephyr, Mylo, Vega, and Belle are coming up on their fourth week as a Mayo Clinic fledgling...Yipee! This is a significant milestone in their life.

The fledglings will potentially continue to be dependent on their parents for the next 2-5weeks, sometimes longer in non-migrating populations (up to 10 weeks or more). Like everything in nature, there are always exceptions. Biologists have observed some falcons disappearing after only a week after fledging, only to show up as a breeding adult on territory, whereas other fledglings may remain on territory for up to six months!!

The fledges are fine tuning their flight skills, engaging in dogfights with their siblings. These mock battles and flight sequences are vital to the fledglings figuring out what works and what doesn't, hopefully without a fatal mistake. Anyone remember the movies Top Gun and one of the lines that Stinger says to Maverick: "Son, your ego is writing checks your body can't cash"? I have to admit I think of that line when I watch some of the flight sequences with these birds and wonder how they didn't crash and burn. Jackie

NOTE: Today's photos is a photo of an Ohio peregrine family, copyright Chris and Chad Saladin. See less

Sunday's Peregrine Observations: What a Day!!

Yesterday, I arrived in Rochester and started my typical route: drive around the downtown, stop and park for awhile, looking for peregrines before moving on to another location. I try to find parking in an area within a few blocks of the nestbox and then start scouting the skies-looking at corners of the taller buildings, but also other tall structures (cranes, antennas, smokestacks). Sometimes I find them right away and sometimes it takes me an hour or more...think of that proverbial "needle in a haystack". Every brood of peregrines are unique, but if you find an adult peregrine, you can often find a fledgling not too far away.

Yesterday, it took me about half and hour to find two fledglings atop the Plummer Building on the east side. They were pretty relaxed with partial crops, so I didn't expect much action from them. As I was watching them, another fledgling flew overhead and the two took off in a chase. Of course, they went out of view to the west and I lost sight of them for the next 40 minutes of so. I've learned not to "chase" them, but rather put myself in a high parking ramp or building rooftop and wait, so that's what I did.

At about 10:12 or so, my patience paid off and out from behind the Mayo and Gonda Building complex, here came two peregrines, hot after some type of medium sized bird. The flight was AMAZING!! Both falcons were chasing, diving, trying to connect with the quarry, who was an amazing flyer in their own right. Just when I thought the bird was safe, Belle (who I learned later) turned it up a notch and successfully connected with her intended quarry and flew to the top of the nest box, with her sibling right behind her. There wasn't really any squabbling between the two, just standing and staring. Vega left shortly afterwards and Belle started plucking a few feathers and eating a few bites, before leaving herself to fly out of my view with her prize. I tried finding her dining area but never did, so I went back to my parking ramp, hoping to find the other two siblings.

Eventually, over the 4 1/2 hours, I was able to find all four fledglings at different locations and doing various things. As it was getting later in the day, and I accomplished what I hoped to do, I left the Clinic campus by 1 pm to return home. A great way to spend my Sunday of the holiday weekend, before meeting up with friends at the lake.

Thanks to everyone who shared stories of watching the falcons on campus, doing what they do best. Take advantage of their presence today, since the day will soon be here when they will no longer fly above the downtown Rochester campus. Lastly, the fledges are also still making a visit to the nest box, so don't forget to continue checking in - you never know who might be home. Jackie

*Today's photo is a screenshot of Vega and Belle on top of the box, shortly after the successful hunt. As I was several blocks away and don't have a 500mm lens, I wasn't able to get any quality images, but the screenshot tells the story better than anything else.