Plumage Changing

Good Morning All.
I see that the nestbox camera is currently off.  Unfortunately there is no way to address the camera issue until Tuesday, but luckily not much is going on in the nestbox.  Yesterday Zoom spent most of her day exploring the ledge area outside the box.
I wanted to touch a little bit on the change in Zoom's plumage.  As everyone can tell she is getting bigger and stronger with each passing day.  You can see in the picture that Zoom is even larger now than she was at the banding just a few short days ago.

We are beginning to see the brown juvenile feathers coming in.  As her flight feathers fill in, we will begin to witness Zoom stretching her wings out, flapping as she faces into the wind and hopping.  When raptor chicks exhibit this behavior they are practicing for their first attempts at flight.  This activity is used to strengthen the muscles they need to fly.
In about 2 weeks she will be testing her flight capabilities.
Hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend.