The falcons at Great Spirit Bluff have jumped out of the box. We originally thought that we were seeing some exploratory behavior, but it looks like the blackflies drove the youngest falcon out before the older two.
We’ve been asked if we plan to go down and rescue them. For now, we’re leaving them alone. It is our experience that falcon parents will take care of their young by flying into the understory to find, feed, and defend them. We don’t want to make the little falcons harder to care for by driving them deeper into the woods, so we’re monitoring them with our cameras for now and will act based on what we see and how Newman and Zooey respond.
Not everyone will care for this video, but I’ve included it for anyone who is interested: https://youtu.be/nwSBsxcwr0I. The falcons were between 31 and 33 days old and had well-developed primary feathers to help them flap and break their fall.
The Raptor Resource Project