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 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…

Mary and I have been following the San Jose falcons fairly closely the past couple days. On Thursday we went downtown in hopes of catching sight of the recently fledged boy, 93-P (now named Mercury). He was being harassed by crows most of the day, and kept on the move. We kept missing him. We eventually caught up to him sitting on a second story window ledge above Zanotto’s Market on 2nd Street. I was able to take some pictures using the digiscope setup. You can see them on my gallery. NBC11 used a couple of my pictures on their web slide show called Adventures in San Jose Baby-Bird-Sitting.

We didn’t have a chance to go downtown on Friday, but we did follow the action via the webcam and discussion group. It turns out Mercury ended up in an unsafe location and was again escorted to the roof of City Hall. He stayed there most of the day, and eventually managed to fly down to the nest area where he spent the night with his sisters Cielo and Meyye. There’s an article about the falcon naming on NBC11 and the San Jose Mercury News ran the following tagline on their Saturday morning paper:

Today, we spent most of the day downtown, dragging my nephew Nick to hang out with all the crazy falcon fans. Apparently we missed some really cool food exchanges, but we did see all of the young falcons from the 4th Street garage. We even saw Mercury make a short flight from the nest box to the window louver where Clara was perched. We had a good time watching the birds and chatting with the other falconatics.

The first of the falcons fledged today. It was the boy (93-P), much like last year. Although I don’t think he was pushed like Hiko was. Last I had heard he was sitting in a pine tree near SJSU. Mary and I headed down town to have a look. By the time we got down there and found the tree in question, the falcon fledgling was gone. We did not know where it went, so we went up to the top of the 4th Street garage where many falcon watchers hang out. It turns out the falcon had seen food being delivered to his siblings, so he took off toward City Hall. He was not able to gain enough altitude and ended up running into the side of the building. He went to the ground and ended up in the street, where one of the local falcon watchers captured it for it’s own protection. The falcon was taken into City Hall and checked out by Glenn of the SCPBRG. They determined the falcon is fine and will release it on the roof of City Hall tomorrow. Hopefully it will fare better next time.

The eagles at Calaveras Reservoir seem to have abandoned their nest. It’s hard to tell if they had any eggs or what happened, but they don’t seem to be hanging around the nest these days. I only have the photos I took on April 27.

As for the eagles from the Channel Islands Live nest cam, it appears fledging will likely be postponed. The two eagle chicks were attacked in the nest by an immature bald eagle while the parents were out hunting. Over the course of nearly 2 hours, both eagles were knocked from the nest by the immature intruder. Fortunately a team from the Institute for Wildlife Studies was on the island at the time and were able to hike over and rescue the birds. The birds were flown to a veterinarian in Orange County (see picture on left). One had a damaged beak and the other a broken wing. The eagle with the broken wing had to be operated on, but the prognosis looks good. Unfortunately, the eagles will not be returned to the nest, but will eventually fledge from a hack site on Santa Cruz Island. The picture below left shows the x-ray of the broken wing after the operation. The picture on the right shows the damaged beak.