If you’re going to band young peregrine falcons, it’s important to get the timing right. They certainly can’t be too young, but they also can’t be too close to fledge. Kathy generally likes to band them at 24 days, but will go up to 28 or 29 days if she must.
By day 35 though, it’s too late. Males can fledge, albeit very early, on day 35. The last thing you want is a bird prematurely leaping out of the nest and into its first flight.
So that’s a pretty tight window. But that’s only because they grow so, so fast.
Even though it’s a little safer at 24 days, I always look forward to bandings closer to 29 days. Why? Because they are just a little cuter. We call them “all browned up” by day 29. At this age, their gorgeous juvenile feathers are emerging through their white floof and it’s just adorable.
And it only gets better each day after that. Even once the feathers are in, it still takes some time to get rid of all the baby floof. I call this process defloofing. While the emerging feathers do a lot of the work, there just seems to be an endless amount of floof to get rid of. As you’re about to see, peregrine have several strategies and techniques to assist them in this time consuming process.
Lady Miss Issy, Fezzik, and Vizzni from the Princess Bride brood are almost unrecognizable just a little over 2 weeks since you saw them last here.
Here is a sort-of video timeline showing this dramatic change from the day they were banded up until today, highlighting a few of the different strategies they’ve used to defloof and transform from fluffy white muppets into sleek little falcons almost ready to fledge.
Enjoy. These kids are precious. I’m just nuts about these three.
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