What a week it’s been! Our webcam is thankfully up and running, we have 11 new arrivals, and all the juvenile Peregrines have settled in nicely. We have seven male and four female in the hack. What’s a hack? It is an ancient term that refers to the site and the method of helping young falcons reach their hunting potential. Food, water, and an environment simulating their natural environment are provided with very little human interaction to give the young falcons experience and exercise in preparation for their release. The hacking period is normally about 10 days, or approximately six weeks of age.
Our new arrivals have an average age of 40 days old, and they weigh between six hundred and one thousand grams. Over the next ten days, they will lose their fluffy white natal down as their juvenile feathers come in and mature enough for flying. In the meantime, they spend their days exercising their wings, hopping between perches, eating, and preening. At night, they settle down and sleep.
Today, two strong males, Kanoa and Flash, were given the green light for release by Janie Fink, the Raptor Biologist in charge of the project. Releasing these guys is when the fun and nail biting begins. Will they bolt to the air where spotters have to record which direction they fly and try to follow them? Will they cautiously step out of the hack but hang around for awhile before truly flying? Each young male was marked on the underside and top of both wings with orange, non-toxic paint for easy identification after they leave the roost. Once the birds fly, observation from the roof of the Radisson Hotel across the street is a bit easier. The birds are weighed, feathers checked for maturity, and keel checked to be sure they are eating properly.
The hack is prepared by putting the ready birds in the blind, while a hack board of tethered quail and water is placed on the open hack door. Janie unlatches the blind door and lets a small stream of light through, then high tails it off the roof. Until these newly released birds fly, there will be no planned human presence on the roof of the Assurant building where the hack is located. Our goal is to imprint these falcons to their urban environment and not to humans.
Posts are manned, and the wait begins. Kanoa and Flash emerged from the blind and walked to the edge of the hack door. Kanoa, being the more mature, tested his wings and hopped out onto the lowered door. Within the hour, he had flapped and hopped himself off the hack completely, but was finding flying in open air a bit more difficult. Over the next hours, he will continue to exercise his wings, hop to get more and more into the air, and hopefully tomorrow, take his first real flight past the rooftop. Meanwhile, Flash is cautiously hanging back at the opened hack, observing the view and activity around him. Calamity Jane, a strong female who was released on June 4 with another female and two other males, returned to the hack site today, and is providing a good example to the younger esays.
Follow our blog daily for progress and learning about these valuable birds being reintroduced to western South Dakota by the South Dakota Game Fish and Parks Department’s Wildlife Division, Birds of Prey Northwest, and business partners in downtown Rapid City
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