Last summer I decided to do something I’d never done before. I was going to become a bird nerd!
That’s right, this orch dork was going to add bird nerd to her list of monikers. It happened when I started watching the SL Falcon cam. The city of Salt Lake has a peregrine falcon nest box on the side of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. There has been a pair of nesting falcons in that box for more than 20 years and the Department of Wildlife Resources has been the overseeing entity to ensure those falcons are watched after and protected as they nest, fledge young, and live in downtown.
The DWR offered an introductory course to the falcons in late May 2014. I attended just to see what it was about and it was there I met Bob Walters, the great falcon overseer! Really, he is! If there is a person anywhere in the state that gives everything he has to the care and keeping of an animal, THIS is the guy! What’s even better about him is that he doesn’t care how much experience you have or don’t have, where you come from, how old you are, what you look like or how much time you have - if you show up and offer to help, he will learn your name, hand you a walkie-talkie and send you out to do the job with all the trust in the world that you are going to do exactly what he needs you to do!
Bob gave us an overview of the falcon history at JSMB and what was needed of the volunteers and when. I really expected more detail, but there wasn’t any. The details were to show up starting on this date, at any time, bring a backpack with a towel, water, and wear sturdy shoes. Really. That was it.
At the appointed day and time I showed up, an old towel tucked in the strap of my backpack, binoculars, water bottle and full of apprehension.
I walked up to Bob, seated at what I soon discovered was “bird central” and said,“Hi, I’m here to help.”
My apprehension disappeared as I was greeted with a smile, summarily handed a walkie-talkie, told where one bird was (the other two were still in the nest box) and instructed where to post up to keep an eye on things.
I soon discovered that watching and waiting for falcons to fledge was a bit like playing a studio gig; 98% boredom and 2% OH MY HELL!! WHAT THE FUZZ !??!?
During that 98% boredom stage I got to know a few people, like the ladies that came and spent an hour helping out before going to work at the unclaimed properties office, or the woman who worked in state government that quite literally waits for this particular time of year and takes her two weeks of vacation just so she can help with the falcons!
I also got to know, indirectly, some of the gardeners at the LDS church property, LDS church security, and a few of the LDS missionaries who wandered through. There were also the people who worked in the church office building who would stop by and ask any of us with a walkie and a towel how the birds were and which birds had fledged and where they all were, at any given time of day.
One thing that was incredibly fun was to show the kids who were downtown with their families exploring, or there on vacation, the birds. To hand them a pair of binoculars and help them focus in, then explain to them that that little bird up there was THE FASTEST animal on the planet (NO WAY!! Mom, is that true???) was incredibly rewarding. It made even more of an impact on those kids when that little bird up there would take flight and I would watch that child follow the bird with their eyes popped open almost as far as their jaw was dropped.
There are two experiences that will be burned in my mind until I die or my mind gives out on me completely.
Mama bird was teaching Ace (he was the first of the young to fledge and he was quite the flyer, very coordinated from the get-go) how to do some hunting. She was having him play catch, mid-air. For this game, Mom would have prey (deceased) and would toss it or try to hand it off to her youngster while they were both in flight.
I was sitting on the corner of South Temple and Main, looking east and south, watching the front of the JSMB when the call came over the walkie that Ace and Mom were on the move and they were moving west - fast. I stood up to see them fly between the buildings over my head, two other volunteers rounded the corner and met up with me as we watched Mom and Ace take the corner and head South.
I remember glancing at the people around me as I ran with the other volunteers following the birds - it was as if all of downtown Salt Lake was watching a high flying aerial act. Everyone had stopped, put hands up to their shade their eyes and were pointing and “Ooohing” at the two feathered artists doing loops and twists above their heads. It was at that moment things went wrong, in a flash the collective gasp from the crowd created a vacuum at the corner of South Temple and Main.
Ace, who was being such a diligent fledgling student, caught the prey Mom threw to him and in his excitement, failed to see the wall of the mall on his west side. He looked, tried to pull up, but it was too late. The prey he had so adeptly caught flew out of his outstretched talons and he turned just enough to allow his back to hit the wall and avoid a full on face plant! Down he fluttered in a heap of disappointed feathers onto the sidewalk.
The three of us sprinted diagonally across the intersection, we seemed to be the only people moving, there was no traffic, no train...nothing! Towels fluttering, walkies crackling - “Where are they? Can you see them? There’s Mom! Where’s Ace!?”
As we stepped up to the dazed bird he looked at us in both shame and amazement. Two of us cornered him while the third radioed in that we had him and he appeared unharmed and that we were bringing him back to “bird central.”
It was only then that I realized the city had exhaled - the camera phones were out, pictures snapping, fingers pointing, traffic moving, the train came around the corner….
The other episode that I will always recall came in the quiet of a morning while I was watching the box waiting for the last bird to fledge (she was a stubborn one). I still tear up thinking about it. It was one of the most amazing, unreal things I’ve ever witnessed in my life.
Me and one other volunteer had been assigned to keep an eye out for the last fledgling, and we were sitting on the bench directly across from the box, enjoying a cool, quiet morning. From that place you can look south and see the Zions bank tower where these birds like to head once they gain some confidence. It’s a great tall building and it has a good vantage point from which the birds can see everything.
That morning, Mama bird and Ace had made it to the top of the Zions building, and as we sat chatting and watching we could see them doing practice circles. Mom would take off from the building head east, make a circle and come back around to the building and land, then Ace would do the same. She really was such a great teacher, that Mama bird.
After a few rounds of watching this we didn’t pay quite as much attention to them, they were practicing and they were fine. Soon we heard the call of Mama. She was making noise and she was serious! As we looked up at them she made another round, Ace followed, but Mom didn’t land. She came up and around again, but gained more altitude, Ace couldn’t follow, he landed and watched.
We stood up. Watching. She was still gaining altitude.
“What is she doing?” I asked.
No answer.
Suddenly, she cried again and in a split second the long, elegant, lengthened, feathered wings disappeared. They flattened against her body and came to a sharp, tight point matching her tail. She had gone from kite to bullet! The speed was incredible!
In the time it took us to gasp, she had travelled from high above the Zions bank building, across the street, between the church administration and JSMB to just past where we were standing. My friend grabbed my arm! Our mouths hung open! Mama falcon screeched again as she popped those pointed wings like a drag chute and came almost to a complete stop, mid-air, in front of the nest box only to scream at, and harass, her yet to fledge youngster, turn and fly away again.
The two of us couldn’t move, we couldn’t speak, we just looked at each other. I had tears, so did she. The walkie popped to life, “Where’s Mom??”
I fumbled to find my walkie. “She’s...um….”
Thankfully, someone else had seen her flight path.
I have never seen anything so fast and so precise. It was the best ‘Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom’ moment I had ever imagined having - and in the middle of downtown Salt Lake!
Today, this sweet, dedicated Mama bird is sick, and if she recovers she may never return to the wild, but you know what, it’s ok. She showed her fledglings what she needed to. She showed them how to fly, how to catch and hunt, and how to shoot down a concrete canyon and make anyone who is aware of their small and quiet presence absolutely stunned at the grace and ability they have been given.
Thank you, Mama bird. You filled the measure of your creation and then some….
"Wherever there are birds, there is hope."
-Mehmet Murat ildan
