Final run of the season

Monday July 2nd. Becky Rosencrans joined Martin and Pat and for one last run round the outer islands to check on the few nests that still needed banding (or not, perhaps) and also to see how some of the chicks we had banded were doing.

At "Madrona" we checked on the chick we banded last week, and it was standing on a rock at the edge of the ledge, ready to fledge.

At "Tekoia" (we banded the young there two weeks ago) we saw a prey transfer from the adult male to the female, and also saw one eyass flying around and heard another.

We checked on "Salmon" and saw both adults perched in trees at either side of the cliff, but no sign of nesting behavior. After checking another eyrie (see below) we returned and Martin made the hard scramble up through the woods to get to the top of the cliff. The adults didn't put up much of a defense, which tended to confirm our suspicions they had failed. He roped down to the ledge we thought they had been using and he saw three old bleached eggs. Definitely failed. The female here is probably 18 years old, so she may be beyond the age for laying fertile eggs.

At "Sterna" Martin and Becky walked up to the top of the cliff and took a good look at the past nest sites, but no sign of any nesting activity at all.

At "Orca" the traditional ledge was empty and the adult female asleep in a tree nearby. We saw another possible ledge at the base of the tree - maybe they will use that next year?

One last check at "Mossy Cliff" revealed, to our surprise, a peregrine on the ledge in 'high brood' position. We had seen incubation behavior earlier in the season but then on later visits it seemed they had failed, so we were perplexed by today's observation. After a while the female flew over to a grassy area and flattened out, sunning herself; we noticed the male in a tree nearby. She did this for about 25 minutes and then flew off away from the nest. We had a good look into the ledge from the boat and couldn't see any chicks or eggs, so we came to the conclusion that she really wasn't brooding.

It was a beautiful day, calm waters and gentle breezes, really nice to be out in a boat. And we got to see some orca whales which we encountered off San Juan Island. For some reason all the whale watching boats had gone away and we had J pod pretty much to ourselves. Here are a couple of photos taken by Martin, one from today and one from the same place 3 years ago.

Becky is hooked on the project.