Ron and I still work on dishAdish from time to time. In fact, we’re in the process of launching dishAdish vegetarian. It’s the same layout and data as the regular dishAdish, but only displays the dishes marked as vegetarian. I think it will be an interesting feature to be able to find the best vegetarian dishes at a given restaurant.

Since last weekend Mary and I haven’t had a chance to look for the peregrines downtown. From the Yahoo Group it sounds like they are starting to venture all over San Jose, though they still seem to return to City Hall for the night.  I do have a few new pictures from last weekend in my San Jose Peregrine album.

We have been checking on the burrowing owls in Alviso near the “Magic Fence”. There are a few burrows in the fields near the fence, and at least one group of fledglings. We have seen as many as three fledgling at once. They are really cute. The burrows are really close to the road and sadly, at least one of the fledgling has been hit by a car and killed. One of the people we met through watching the falcons downtown has also been watching the burrowing owls. After the incident with the car she posted a bunch of signs around the area asking people to be more careful and watch for the owls. Fortunately now that the young are flying a bit they seem to be spending more time in the field away from the road. There are more pictures of the burrowing owls in the gallery. The albums are separated by year and the 2008 album is broken down by day.

I was very sad to hear that on of the juvenile falcons, Cielo (tagged 52/Z), died last night. She was found on a 4 story portion of City Hall yesterday morning and was non-responsive. She was apparently ill with a possible head injury. She received veterinary care and seemed to be improving, but she died during the night. While the mortality rate for young falcons is fairly high, this is the first young falcon death we have been through for the downtown San Jose family. The male from last year, Jose, had not returned this year and is presumed to have died as well, but the death of Cielo happened right in the home territory. We can only hope for the best for Mercury and Meyye who both seem to be flying quite well. Rest in Peace, Cielo (April 22, 2008 - June 17, 2008).

It looks like the “Falcon Season” in downtown San Jose is coming to an end. By this I mean the young falcons are flying well and starting to explore further from City Hall. Soon they will fly off never to return. Mary and I spent a lot of the weekend downtown trying to get in some last views of Mercury, Meyye (pictured on left) and Cielo before they move away. We saw some exciting games of tag between the siblings, and some pretty impressive flying overall. If we get really lucky maybe we’ll get to see a mid-air food transfer or even one of the young falcons on a successful hunt. That would be a great end to the season. In addition to the photos in my gallery, I’ve posted a few videos on YouTube.

In addition to the falcons, we did our usual hike up Mission Peak on Saturday. I think my knee is getting a bit better. It hardly hurt at all coming down and hasn’t been very sore the past couple days. On Sunday we took Mary’s dad out for Father’s Day with her mom and brother. We went to Outback and I had a really good NY Strip. I haven’t been eating much red meat lately, so it seemed especially tasty. Nick went to Boston for the weekend and we picked him up from the airport this evening. We all went out to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner. As usual, I ate too much.

I checked in on the status of the eagle chick. It turns out the one with the injured beak, Spirit, has been returned to Santa Cruz island and now resides in the hack tower there. Spirit has a roommate named Survivor who was rescued from Northern California after the tree containing its nest blew over. The two young eagles will remain in the hack tower until they are ready to fledge. Then the door will be left open and they will be free to leave. Food will be provided at the hack tower until both eagles are hunting well on their own. The picture below shows Spirit (#64) and Survivor (#66) in their new dorm.

In the mean time,  the eagle with the broken wing, Skye, is still at the vets office in Orange County. Eventually Skye will move to the hack tower on Santa Cruz island as well.

I spent most of last week on the 4th Street Garage in downtown San Jose watching the peregrine falcons on City Hall. I even had an opportunity to visit the mayor’s office on the 18th floor to view Meyye on the Brise Soleil (see picture on left). All three young peregrines have fledged and each has had their own share of (mis)adventure. Each one had to be rescued and returned to the top of City Hall and the young male, Mercury, has had two trips back up. Now they seem fairly content to take short flights near by then returning to the nest area. Up until last night, they are spending the nights together near the nest under their mothers watchful eye. Their flying skills are improving each day and it’s only a matter of time until they all go their separate ways. For more pictures, see San Jose Peregrines 2008.

On Saturday Mary and I hiked Mission Peak as usual. Nick has been joining us on the hike as well. We spent most of the afternoon downtown with the falcons. In the evening we went to see some exhibits for 01SJ, a biennial global festival of art on the edge. A lot of the art exhibits make use of digital technologies and there are events all over downtown. The most interesting exhibit I saw was the City Hall Rotunda Concert + Lighting by Craig Walsh (picture on right). It consisted of a large scale projection display on the glass walls of the City Hall Rotunda. It covered the first two floors of the building and looked like three dimensional tentacles growing and pressing against the glass. The tentacles kept growing and changing colors. It was pretty neat. I don’t think we heard the music that was supposed to accompany the exhibit. I didn’t see much else that I found interesting. You can click on the picture of the rotunda for to see a few more pictures.

On Sunday we spent more time with the falcons downtown, but we didn’t see much action. I’m sure we’ll visit off and on while the falcons continue to explore the city. In the mean time, I guess I’ll have to start thinking about what I want to do next regarding my career. Maybe I can just fly off with the falcons instead…