Ledgelings
Monday June 01st 2009, 10:48 pm
Filed under: Wildlife

A quick side note: my email glitched last week, and if I didn’t answer you, it means my inbox didn’t get your comment and there was no address for me to respond to; my apologies. And, Don is home now and again grateful for your support, as am I.

My children went through a stage as babies where they were so eager to finally be able to stand that they would pull themselves up in their cribs and stay there holding onto the top till their legs shook from exhaustion, but they just couldn’t let go to sit down again.  When they finally fell down, crying because they couldn’t take it anymore, they would immediately stand right back up again, tired or no.  This was something new that they’d been wanting to do that they now knew they *could* do and it was just so compelling to them to keep at it. No pleading from me or making them sit down would work, that first day; the effort finally wore them out enough for them to go to sleep.

The second day, they remembered that legs could bend and they learned how to let themselves back down when they needed to.

I happened to catch the moment: the camera was straight behind Ilahay, the female falcon chick among the four that the peregrine group was calling “ledgelings” yesterday. She and Veer  were the first to get up the courage to flutter carefully to the upper ledge above the small runway that had been their home. They spent a great deal of time side-by-side up there towards evening.

She was again on that ledge today, looking out over the San Jose skyline below her. And then suddenly, as simple as that, she flew off  as if she’d been doing it all her life, out and out and slightly downward.  The camera, perfectly positioned, showed her there in the air supported by nothing but Life itself in all its glory. It was a heartstopping, joyful moment.

Off camera, a few hours later, Veer was practicing his flapping on top of the nest box when a gust of wind caught him, according to the watchers below, and he, too, learned he could at last fly.

She ended up on the rotunda dome of City Hall.  (The nest and runway are in that piece jutting out on the left side near the top of the main building.) Veer ended up outside the mayor’s office, where the blinds got pulled so as not to disturb the little political animal.

They went without dinner, there Where The Wild Things Are.  At nine pm, they were still clinging to those spots.

Tomorrow, I imagine, they will learn how to let go and climb upwards again.