Visiting with the Atlanta Falcons

While Dawn was soaking up seminar after seminar at the 2006 Southeastern Educational Congress of Optometry (SECO), I had an excellent opportunity to observe not one, but two pairs of Peregrines in the wonderful city of Atlanta, Georgia. My guide was the inimitable Jim Heard, who did triple duty as chauffer, photo-buddy, and Atlanta Falcon Liaison. Our day started early, ended late, and was filled with excitement, surprises, and plenty of opportunities for pictures. Hang on to your hats, gentle readers, for a giant-sized edition of the Bird Blog!

After picking me up at the hotel, Jim and I headed for the Four Seasons Hotel, the site where a pair of Peregrines had been found nesting last year. We fortified ourselves with Starbucks coffee and headed around the corner. Jim immediately pointed high up on the side of the building, where we found our first falcon:

The bird was vocalizing, and we heard several clearly voiced e-chup calls. We had hardly moved into position in an adjacent parking lot when we found the object of the bird's calls:
          

From the number of European Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) brazenly flying through the area, we're fairly confident that the prey being carried is indeed one of these. I gave my Canon 20D's five frames per second burst mode and image-stabilized zoom lens a great workout and it didn't let me down, firing away until she landed around the side of the building from her mate:
          

We watched for signs of the prey being cleaned, but saw nothing, and after a few seconds the falcon (we think it was the female) ducked inside the grating and out of sight.

The ventilation grates which these Peregrines have chosen as their nest site appear to be nearly as high as the nest box at Kodak. Here's a shot that gives some idea of the distance we were working with:


Pretty soon, it was the male's turn to fly:
          

He circled around to the old IBM building nearby and we lost sight of him for a while. When he emerged, he found that Atlanta has a "communication tower" just like Rochester (but a lot bigger!):


The old IBM building (originally built to house IBM's offices in Atlanta, but later sold to new owners) appears to be a favorite hideout/hunting perch for the Four Seasons Peregrines. Both of them disappeared behind it several times during our 2+ hour watching session:

It has a gorgeous, neo-gothic architecture that's reminiscent of the English Gothic style, with its broad, shallow arches. It's well-suited to the use the falcons have apparently found for it.

The female took off again, still carrying her prey, and flew out of sight, as did the male, who took off from the radio tower. Both headed for the IBM building, and for a while, we were left falcon-less. Then, in Kaver-like fashion, the male appeared atop a nearby roof:


My years of watching Mariah and Kaver paid off, as the falcon moved into what I recognized as a take-off position. Camera at the ready, I was in great position to capture his launch and short flight back to the hotel facade:
     

          
One thing we discovered is that the male appears to be banded. We detected a black/red band on one leg and a silver (presumably USFWS) band on the other. We could have stayed and watched this active, engaging pair all day, but lunchtime was approaching, and our watching was only just beginning, so we bade farewell to the Four Seasons falcons and headed toward the center of town for our next appointment.

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The Sun Trust building is the highest regularly occupied structure in Atlanta. At 55 stories, it is over twice the height of the Kodak tower. From its upper floors there is an unimpeded view of the entire city, an obvious advantage for any Peregrine! After parking in the garage across the street, we took the express elevator up to the 53^rd floor, where Jim introduced me to Laura Miller, the point person for the Atlanta Peregrine falcons. Laura works for the law firm of McKenna, Long & Aldridge, which occupies most of the building's upper floors. Laura has been involved with the peregrines on the building for many years, and she lent her invaluable knowledge and experience to us for the afternoon. She also provided lunch! We feasted on Mexican fare in one of the firm's conference rooms overlooking the 2005 nest site that was occupied by Frederick and Gracie, but Laura had mixed news for us-- neither Gracie nor Frederick had been seen for several weeks. Given Frederick's age (he was hatched in 1989), it is likely that he lost a territory battle and was driven off (or worse). On the plus side, it appeared that a new pair had taken their place. Unfortunately, they were nowhere to be found, though we were all pretty sure we heard e-chupping while we were eating. A search of the building on all sides turned up nothing though, and we thought we might be skunked on this visit. Fortunately, our patience was rewarded with the sudden arrival of the male:

          

Even windblown, he's a good-looking bird, with a dark hood and lively manner. We're sure he took notice of us through the broad windows, but he showed no skittishness as we spent minute after minute photographing him. Eventually, he jumped down to the planter box that has served as Frederick and Gracie's scrape and began to vocalize:


He stared out over the city, apparently intent upon something, and we soon found out why, as his mate swooped to a landing outside the chrome railing on the edge of the building:


Laura's report of the female's young age was easily confirmed by the obvious immature streaking on her belly, which is partially visible in this shot:


The combination of grey and brown plumage on her head and back were further confirmation of her sub-adult status. We theorize that this is a one- to two-year old bird, but since none of us are plumage experts we didn't want to hazard a guess as to her exact age. She hopped down into the planter box as the male moved through the foliage:
          

They both spent time in the back of the planter, and through the vegetation we observed the male scraping out a depression in the dirt with his feet, and both of the birds performed the bowing behavior typical of courting couples. Laura let us know that she had observed mating behavior between the two of them, so it appears that the pair bond has been established. Whether the female is of an age to lay viable eggs remains to be seen, but the signs are good that if she is, the folks at McKenna, Long & Aldridge may soon be welcoming some new Peregrines into the world.

After their courting, the male jumped onto the chrome rail:


He was followed by the female, who missed her jump and ended up on the ground beside the planter, where she had to walk out, a bit ignominiously, but none the worse for wear:
     

While we were there, Laura announced tentative names for the newest tenants. Borrowing from one of the great romances of the Golden Age of the Silver Screen, she has decided to name them Kate and Spencer, for Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey. It seems a fitting choice, since both of these falcons appear to love the limelight, and they're certainly glamorous!

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Our final stop of the evening was at the rehab center where Lawrence has been recouperating. He's under the expert care of Mark and Jessica. Jessica is a Veterinarian and falconer. Mark is also a falconer, and a Vet tech. They're both very dedicated to the mission they've set for themselves, and it was immediately obvious that Lawrence was in good hands. He displayed a healthy appetite as he jumped from a chair to Mark's glove:
     

His reward was tasty bits of quail, which he devoured with abandon. Mark explained that his training regimen for Lawrence begins with fairly short hops on the creance, gradually increasing in length until he consistently flies 100 feet (30 meters) or more. Then he'll move to lure training, with the aim of teaching Lawrence how to stoop upon his prey. Mark hasn't had as much time to devote to Lawrence's rehabilitation as he'd like due to other pressing committments, but he's confident that he'll have Lawrence ready for release within a few weeks:
     

From what we saw, Lawrence appears to be flying well, and I have no doubt he'll have every chance to thrive.

What a terrific day it was! I'm grateful to Jim, Laura, Mark and Jessica for the opportunity to observe the falcons of Atlanta at such close range. It's an experience I'll long remember, and one I hope to be able to repeat in the future.

Wall to Wall Woodpeckers

Dawn and I have had good luck with several recent sightings of our favorite large backyard bird, the Dryocopus pileatus, or Pileated Woodpecker. Here are a couple of nice shots of a female in one of the trees in our front yard, including an unusual look at the bird's neck plumage from the underside:


Dawn got her photographic feet wet with my new Canon EOS 20D, snapping some nice shots of the woodpecker with no previous experience (She didn't know that she had to unlock the friction ring on the zoom lens, so her shots weren't zoomed in, but her results were good nonetheless). Here's a male enjoying some peanut suet:


She shot those pictures when I was out on an ambulance shift. Dawn told me that the male and female showed up together, so we're prettty sure we have a mated pair, here. Amazingly when I got home, the woodpecker was still hanging around. The afternoon light was terrific, so I took full advantage of the situation:


After he got done eating, he climbed up to the roof of the seed feeder and flew to a nearby Silver Maple:

Though the feeder shots are nice, I'd been looking for an opportunity to shoot the Pileated in a more natural setting, so I was doubly thankful for the lighting and the unwitting cooperation of my subject (at least until he decided to fly away!):


A few minutes later as I was getting ready to take Tessa and Quest for a walk, a female Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) arrived for an afternoon meal:

I was pleasantly surprised when I reviewed the shots of this bird, because it was the first time I'd ever been able to see the yellow shafts of its feathers (check out the flight feather between the brown primaries and the dark tail).

Would you believe that all those shots save the very first one came within a ten minute span? Shooting in burst mode at 5 frames per second, I took over 100 images in mere minutes. I'm using a very fast Sandisk Extreme III 1GB Compact Flash card, which the camera can write to almost as fast as I can take the pictures. A few days ago I performed a test. The specs for the EOS 20D state that its internal buffer can store a burst of 23 JPEG images (at highest quality). I managed 30 with the Sandisk card, and the buffer dumped all 30 of those shots to the card in less than five seconds! That's a level of performance that should serve me very well, especially if we find ourselves with four or five fledglings in the air again this year. My only concern is that I'm going to need more cards to keep up with all the pictures I'll be taking...

Close Encounters of the Hawk Kind

There wasn't much action today; there were no falcons to be seen at all. Rather, it was the warm sunny weather that made the lunch hour worthwhile, combined with a nice low fly-over by a Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis). Watchers on the bridge included Dana, Carol, Larry O'Heron, and Brian-- a smallish crowd given the excellent conditions, but then everyone is busy these days. Lisa McKeown joined us later and noted that she'd seen a Peregrine perched on the far side of the HSBC building, most likely our new interloper. There's the old aphorism about a picture and a thousand words, so I'll skip my normal verbosity and get right to the good stuff.
          
I like the dark belly band on this hawk, and the sun helped to show off the bird's tail.
     

     

Have I mentioned how much I love my new Canon EOS 20D camera? It hasn't let me down yet, and I think the quality of the images speaks volumes for the capabilities of the camera. The hawk got so close I could probably have used the 20D's pop-up flash to fill in some of the shadows beneath the bird. If only I'd have thought of that out on the bridge today...

The weather is rumored to be turning cold and nasty for February, so it looks like our remarkably mild winter might soon be drawing to an end. Then again, the meteorologists seem to be wrong as often as they're right, so I'll believe it when I see it.