Great Day for Bling!

Yesterday's banding event went well. HUGE THANKS to our video team for filming and to Susie Vance, who gave the "Play by Play" of the banding process. Another BIG THANKS goes out to the students, parents, teachers and faculty of Griffith Thomas Elementary School for participating in the Falcon Naming Contest.

All three chicks (1 male and 2 females) looked great and very healthy!  Each received a USGS band on their right leg and a color band on their left leg.  Here are the details on the "bling:"

Dart (male) black/red:  38/D (USGS band is purple, yellow legs)

Blaze (female) black/red:  48/Z (USGS band is silver, yellow legs)

Hoshi (female) black/red:  31/Z (USGS band is silver, blue legs)

Besides the leg bands (which aren't always visible), included above is a note about the color of the legs of each chick to help tell them apart while they are still in the nest.  The leg color of the chicks can vary some by individual but when they mature, they will all have yellow legs.  Here they are, all lined up showing their bling:

New this year, we used a camera strapped to Donna to provide a different perspective of the banding.   Here is a link to a video of highlights.

After the event the chicks were returned safely to the nest and rested most of the rest of the afternoon.  The nestcam lens was cleaned and hopefully it will stay that way!

The unhatched egg was left in the nest as the Division of Wildlife does not have authorization from the US Fish & Wildlife Service to remove it.  If it is still present at the end of the summer when we do annual maintenance on the box, it will be removed at that time.