Fledge Watch Day One Updates
As of 11:00 am on Tuesday, June 10th, all three falcons have left the pen! We have a map highlighting various hotspots of activity from previous years, found here. You can use this to orient yourself as to the various locations of the birds throughout the day!
Updates:
Blue (left) and Red (right) perch together atop a light on the Riverfront Plaza’s West Tower.
11:03 am: The pen was opened at approximately 10:15 am. White was the first to leave just a few minutes after the pen opened. After circling above Kanawha Plaza for a few minutes he ultimately landed atop the Truist roof on the south-facing side, where he remains currently perched.
Blue walked out of the pen at approximately 10: 55 am and hopped on top of the parapet wall. He was followed shortly after by Red who also hopped up on the wall. Both birds remain perched at this location near the camera atop the Riverfront Plaza West Tower.
4:06 pm: At the time of this writing, we have known locations on each of the three fledglings. Blue and Red both left the parapet wall within minutes of one another at approximately 1:20 pm.
Blue quickly circled back and landed once again on the West Tower where he remains as of now. One of the adults delivered a prey item to him at approximately 3:00 pm.
Red took flight shortly after Blue and after momentarily circling the air above Kanawha Plaza, she flew back around the south side of Riverfront Tower and ultimately collided with a sliding glass door associated with a residence at the Locks Tower. After the collision she landed on the balcony of the residence, out of our staffs view. Fortunately, we were able to get in contact with the resident of this unit and were on the way to that private balcony when Red reappeared, hopped on a railing, and then took flight once more approximately thirty minutes or so after her initial collision. From here, she flew east and landed atop a historic tower associated with Richmond’s Canal Walk. Roughly two hours later, she left this tower following some slight harassment from a red-tailed hawk and attempted to land on one of the Riverfront Towers. She miscalculated this landing and instead circled lower, landing on top of the Locks Tower roof, where she remains currently
White has displayed the most flight out of the group thus far. He left the Truist building around 1:00 pm and after some circling above Kanawha Plaza, landed atop the New Dominion building. He stayed here for roughly 30 minutes before he returned to his perch on the south-facing Truist roof. Roughly an hour later, he returned to the new Dominion building albeit on a different perch located behind the facade where he remains currently.
8:15 pm: DWR staff concluded monitoring efforts at approximately 6:00pm today. At that time, Red was presumed to still be atop the Locks Tower roof, while Blue and White were suspected to be on top of the Riverfront Plaza West Tower. DWR staff will be reconvening tomorrow morning for a second day of monitoring with updates to follow, as time permits.
Red (on the left) and Blue (on the right) perched atop the Riverfront West Tower parapet ledge shortly after leaving the pen.