The Parent Trap - Day 5

The weather decided to cooperate today so I packed up the chicks and went to meet Dennis at the Radisson. We must have looked very strange going up in the elevator with our odd luggage - lawn chairs, digital video recorder, knapsacks, small cooler and something under a large towel. Once on the roof, we put in our chick-proofing - wooden bars that would protect the chicks but still allow the adults to feed them. We have used this kind of barricade on hackboxes in the past and non-breeding adults (pairs and individual birds) have been observed catching prey and feeding it to the incarcerated chicks through the bars. Since our kids were going to be left on their on their own without adult protection until/if "adopted". Once the bars were secured in place and the gravel in the box smoothed out, it was time to put the kids in their new (hopefully) home.



Overseeing all our activities on the roof was Princess sitting high up on one of the telecommunications towers. After the chicks were settled and fed, Dennis (who had been madly photographing all this time) and I headed off to our hidden observation point where we could watch the chicks on the nestbox cam. Remember the lawn chairs in our luggage? Essential recovery project equipment when you plan to camp out in front of a computer screen on the roof of a building for an extended period of time. Dennis kept an eye on the kids while I went to reconnect our digital video recorder to the camera. Then we settled in to watch and wait. And wait we did, all day and into the evening with only mealtimes for excitement. Princess hung out watching us for most of the morning and afternoon before leaving presumably to kill something. Didn't see Trey, but since we were watching the monitor he could have been by a few times without our seeing him. Come nightfall, I packed the chicks up with me to take home as the wind was coming up, and I wasn't yet comfortable leaving the chicks in the nestbox alone at night. Would try again tomorrow ...