Yup, I'm the camera jockey at this time of night. Will be leaving the cam in this position so that we can hopefully see any more flights from both sites. We have a recorder on the camera, so even though we are zoomed out, it can help us if any/all of the chicks decide on early flights again ...
Okay, to answer a couple of questions from the last 39 pages of posts ...
Parkade roof is 2-3 stories below the nest ledge, so actually not that low. Its a great location for him, it means he went out and came back and didn't lose a whole lot of altitude in the process. At this age/stage, they are big gliders. Horizontal flight is easier than vertical flight - the latter takes practice and more muscle strength. They will get both quickly, but the first few days are the most arduous. He actually was about nestledge height when he began "walking" up the wall - I think he knew where he wanted to be but was a bit too far south and thought he'd hang on until he figured out how to go north. Didn't take him long to figure out that wasn't going to happen and he pushed himself off the building and flew (not dropped) to the parkade roof. I would like to think he was demonstrating good sense.
And yes, he's hanging out at the north end because a) its closest to the nestbox and b) its the highest end. The trick for him will be to fly from the parkade to a nearby building, optimally a bit higher and then work his way a little higher each time until he can take a run back to the nestledge if that's where he wants to be. So long as he does get overly ambitious, he should do well. Each time he flies, short hops or long, incremental heights or at the same height, he's improving his flight skills.
Yes, all the chicks will get fed. So long as they call, the parents will take them food. Awhile after they have fledged and their flight skills have improved, they will start chasing their parents for food - that's the next stage of flight training! It will get to the point where the adults will drop food to them in mid-air and they will grab it in mid-air - special aerial acrobatic flight training! And they will start to chase other things and eventually they will catch it, then figure out this is where their dinner comes from and at that point the frequency with which they beg for food from their parents will decrease and then they are on their own and we will rarely, if ever, see them again at the nestledge.
Bccs will be back out tomorrow am for fledge watch - I'll be trying to track them with the cam for as long as I can ... and the watch words are "no news is good news". It is exceedingly difficult to track the birds from the ground because all they have to do is go back a couple of feet on the roof and you can't see them anymore. They then might sit there for the next 10 hours or run across the roof and take off again 10 seconds later. Either way it is difficult to track them and so you just have to keep moving until you catch up with them again. The webcam helps in that it lets us look some rooftops. Even when we look from the roof, we can only see the east side of the Hotel, we can't see north, south or west from the Radisson roof and access to rooftops is very difficult (not possible on weekends) and timeconsuming - you get on a roof and the chicks has moved along and you have to go down again, spend 1/2-1 hour getting access to the next roof and of course he's moved by then again. So walking the streets and tracking with the cam is more effective and efficient - at least while they are within range of the ledgecam.
Guess that's it for now ... more tomorrow of course ...
