Fledging at Uccle and first flying exercises at the ULB.
It was planned or rather expected: one of the two male Peregrine falcons hatched on April 15, fledged this Tuesday, 28th of May! The second is, this 29th of May, still in the nest.
Now is the time to observe them, via streaming or live at Place Saint Job! Soon, the second juvenile falcon will also leave the nest. The two juvenile Peregrines will remain very attached to the church for a few days. They will discover air currents, gusts, rain, how to fly, how to land. An entire program! After a few days, they will have gained enough confidence to start exploring the surroundings and will then “escape” our observations.
This is also an important step for Peregrine parents who will continue to feed their offspring while they learn the art of aerial hunting. But we cannot say that they teach them to hunt. This is a trial-and-error processor for the juvenile falcons. This parent-offspring dependence can take several weeks or even months. We will talk about it again.
In the meantime, the 4 juvenile female Peregrines of the ULB begin to strengthen their wings at the entrance to their nest. For several days, they have been very regularly visible from the bottom of Avenue Paul Héger on the Solbosch campus. Their first flight is expected around the 6th of June.
At the cathedral, the couple broods again and again. For 65 days, the two partners have taken turns on the single egg whose embryo died shortly before hatching, around the 1st of May. They will abandon it sooner or later, but there is little data on comparable cases. As we do not know the mechanism which will at some point cause the brooding/ incubation to stop.
