Close to Fledging!

Today the young falcon was 37 days old and he was doing a lot of good moving. In just the last 3 days he has advanced so much. On Wednesday he was coming out on to the perch bar and hoping back into the box for his first time. Today he was coming out to the perch bar and flapping and then eventually worked his way up to the top of the box.

We had been watching the young falcon stand on the perch bar and flap, flap, flap, flap. Then we looked away for a few moments to talk to people and when we looked back he was on top of the box. We were unsure if he would go into the box again because it seems a little harder to get back into the box then out. We watched the falcon run across the top of the box and flap his wings for a while. This area was a whole new world for him today and it was neat to watch him explore it. He was looking all around at birds, bugs and feathers passing by. He seemed pretty content in his expanded world. However, he did not stay up there as long as we had thought.

Eventually the young falcon made it back into the box. He was a sneaky bird. We looked away for another brief moment and then he was gone again. We were a little worried that he had tried to fly and we did not see where he went. We did not have our monitor for the camera in the box today because of all the time he had been spending out of the box. After a bit of observing we noticed the parents were calling and coming to the box and then flying to another perch and coming to the box again. We still did not see the young bird appear to greet his parents so we continued to wonder where he was. Eventually we did see him peak his head out of the box and begin to flap inside the box. We were happy to see he did not try to fly yet.

The parents continued to fly to the box and back to another perch on the Greysolon Plaza building. They did this over and over again. It was really some neat action.  They could have been encouraging the young bird to come out of the box again and teaching him about flying. Since he does not have any other siblings, he will have to rely on his parents to "play" with more.

We are excited to see how the next few days roll out. This young bird looks like he is really getting ready to fly. It takes about 40-45 days for a young falcon to develop enough to take its first flight. Males will usually fledge sooner then females and in just 3 days this one will be 40 days.  However, it is all up to the bird so we will just have to wait and see.