First, Evet’s photos and captions here are just incredible.  Kekoa peeking in through the blinds at City Hall.  Maya missing that landing; being rescued later. The whole thing. Wow.

For tonight’s falcon update, a report from someone on the ground later helped me make sense of who was who and thus why what happened (thank you, Lori). So.

A falcon landed in the early evening on top of the nestbox, its back to the camera with prey in claw: big, I mean big, and not a pigeon.   One of the adults, who turned out to be Clara, landed immediately after on the ledge right by the first.

And then there they stood. Perfectly still. I wondered if the two parents were waiting for the fledglings to arrive for dinner and if they were going to tell them to go pluck their own now? But it was just odd to see them not doing anything with it.

And then the crow put on its best Monty Python accent and waved a weak bit of a hello at the camera, “I’m not dead yet!”

Hey! Maya, it turned out, the one gripping it, bent down.  Steak shouldn’t be that tartare, you stop it.  She stopped it.

I was thinking of the dead crow left on the ledge when Maya fledged, undevoured for hours before they ate it–crows seem not to be their favorite food.  (Neither are they tolerated in harassing the young.)

Finally Kekoa flew in.  And then the three of them stood there stock still like hunters posing for the camera with their trophy. Waiting for the whole family to come to dinner?  Yo?  EC?

Ewwww, Mommmm, crowwwww, I wanted pigeon for dinner!

Finally Maya started in on this plucking thing–and then all at once it was a free-for-all. One flew to the runway with it, one stepped on it, the other pulled the prey and the sibling down the runway a bit, here, you get the wing I  get the rest I carried it up here you couldn’t!

Clara had caught it, it turns out, and had passed it mid-air to Kekoa, who, being male and therefore smaller, was losing altitude under the weight of the monstrous bird.  He then apparently lost the bird.  Just like Veer from last year.  Clara got it back and handed it off to Maya–Maya’s first successful prey transfer, as far as we know. Maya managed to gain altitude and got it up there to that nestbox. (Neener neener, little guy.)

Where she had to figure out what to do next.

They were later seen taking to the skies, dancing for the camera again, but I was off to knitting group and had to call it a night.

Where I knitted featherations.