Today was banding day for the peregrine falcon chicks at San Jose City Hall. It official, there are 2 girls and 1 boy. The event started around 8am when Brian of the SCPBRG repelled down to the ledge containing the nest box. He then proceeded to band each of the chicks while Clara, the mother, kept swooping in hoping to scare the intruder away. I managed to watch the entire event on the web cam, and I believe additional video footage from Brian’s helmet cam will be posted eventually. The picture on the left was taken by Nick Dunlop from the roof of City Hall. There are (currently) additional photos on the Mayor’s webpage.

On Sunday while in the kitchen, I heard a persistent chirping noise in the back yard. I looked outside a few times, but didn’t see anything. Eventually, I noticed a little black phoebe fledgling sitting on the grill calling to be fed. I managed to get a few shots through the sliding glass door, but it was partially obscured by the grill. While I was shooting, I noticed it open its mouth real wide and was make extra noise. I got a shot of the open mouth (see picture on right), but missed what happened next. One of the parents swooped in, jammed some food in the mouth and flew off again. It happened so fast. I saw the feeding a couple more times, but never did manage to get a photo. Eventually the phoebe flew to the back fence and kept calling. After another food exchange, the fledgling followed the parent out of view. I have seen the fledgling a couple tims since then. It seems to be doing well.

In the mean time, the San Jose City Hall peregrines are growing rapidly. They are starting to hop around a bit, and one has even ventured outside the nest box. I believe they will be banded for identification purposes on Friday. Maybe I’ll go downtown to watch. You can’t really see the banding from the ground, but you can see the parents swooping and calling to scare away the intruder. It should be interesting.

It looks like I’ll be moving on to the next phase of my professional career. I’m not sure what that will be, but it will most likely not involve Aptility. Nate and I had some discussions earlier this week and came to the mutual conclusion that we should go our separate ways. Nate will continue on with Aptility, and I wish him the best of luck.

For now I’ll be spending my time figuring out what I want to do next. That means I’ll probably be spending more time at Panera Bread and various cafes with friends like Ron and Khoa. I’d still like to do something in the clean tech space, but mobile applications are also a distinct possibility. Time will tell, or as my sister Sue keeps reminding me, “one day at a time.”

I forgot to mention that on Thursday I saw the dermatologist for a simple procedure to remove and annoying skin tag from my right eyelid. It was fairly small, but at times I could see it at the edge of my vision, and it seemed to be growing. The procedure lasted all of 90 seconds: a shot of a local anesthetic, a quick cut with a scalpel, and some cauterization to seal it up. The doctor is sure it’s just a skin tag, but she sent it to the lab just to be sure.

This morning I went hiking at Mission Peak with Mary and her hiking crew. It was the first time I went hiking for a while, but I did ok. My knees didn’t bother me much, but a blister on my little toe slowed me down at the end. I guess I’ll need to toughen up so we can do some backpacking this year.

After hiking, we went through Alviso to visit the white bunny we discovered last weekend. Apparently the people we saw there trying to catch it last weekend did not succeed and it also turns out there are two bunnies! They are really cute (see picture on left). We didn’t seem them on our first pass by, but we dropped off a little spinach and went to Don Edwards. After a walk around the park, we went back and waited near where we had placed the spinach. We saw one come out and eat some of the spinach. After a while, Mary got out of the car and made a successful attempt to feed the bunny. They seem content with the local vegetation, but they seemed to enjoy the spinach a bit more. We know we shouldn’t feed wild animals, but we haven’t decided what rules apply here. They seem quite content in their new home, but they definitely stick out like a sore thumb. It’s hard to say how long they will manage to avoid predators. At least they found a nice home borough excavated by the local ground squirrels. I have more pictures of the bunnies in my gallery.

After our visit withe the bunnies, we came home to watch the Collegiate Rugby National Championship match between Cal and BYU. The match was played at Stanford, but I was too lazy to go to the game. I chose instead watch it on the internet on the new USA Rugby Network. I only caught the second half, but it was already over by then anyway since Cal was up 45-0. Cal went on to win their fifth strait national title, 59-7.

No, it’s not an off-season NFL match up. Mary and I have been following both the downtown San Jose Falcons and the Channel Islands National Park Eagles webcams. It’s not a competition of course, other than maybe for our DSL bandwidth. Both webcams are the best we’ve found for their species.

The San Jose Falcons nest on the 18th floor of City Hall. A nest box was placed there in 2006 after a male (Jose) and female (Clara) had been seen frequenting the area. The pair took up residence and had 3 offspring in 2007. This year, there’s a new male (Carlos) and three new little chicks. The nest and webcam are monitored by the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group. Last year one of their staff repelled down from the roof to band the chicks. I imagine that will happen again in the next month or so. Of course the best thing about these falcons is we can head to downtown to San Jose and see them flying around. We managed to see two of the three chicks fledge last year and hope to do as well this year. Even if we don’t see them fledge, we’ll definitely enjoy watching them learn to fly around downtown San Jose.

The Channel Islands Eagles nest on Santa Cruz Island in Channel Islands National Park. The pair of eagles started nesting there in 2006. The male (K-10) and female (K-26) were both fostered on Catalina Island in 2001 and 2002 respectively. There were the first pair to hatch an egg on the Channel Islands in more than 50 years. The camera setup had to be backpacked to the site, which doesn’t sound like much until you add the microwave dish, solar array and battery! The camera is pretty high quality and includes sounds. There are currently two chicks in the nest born in early April. “Channel Islands Live” is made possible by the Ventura County Office of Education and Channel Islands National Park.