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June 1, 2007

Photo: Young falcon gets flying assist from DEM

Photo courtesty of Joe Buban / RI DEM
Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management Officer Mark Saunders returns a young peregrine falcon to the Bank of America building in Providence after it apparently fell while learning to fly.

PROVIDENCE -- Learning to fly can be difficult, especially when you start from the 28th floor of a building in downtown Providence.

When the state Department of Environmental Management received a call today about an injured falcon on the ground near the Bank of America building, DEM officers Joe Buban and Mark Saunders found a young peregrine falcon in a vacant lot across from the building.

Buban and Saunders checked the bird for injuries -- found it was in good health -- and decided to return it to a nesting box on the 28th floor of the Bank of America building, where peregrines have been nesting for the past several years.

With the help of bank employee Michael Fossa, they were able to bring it up to the 27th floor and put the bird on the deck near the nest.

"As soon as we did that, the parents started to dive bomb us so we had to get out of there," Saunders said.

Saunders says the falcon was born this spring, and he believes the bird was injured learning to fly. There's little margin for error, he says, learning to fly among city buildings, especially when you're a bird capable of moving at nearly 200 mph.

"The young ones, they've got to learn fast," Saunders said.

He figures the young falcon is doing better now, since a worker from the nearby Textron office, Dan Custer, called him about a half hour after the rescue to say he saw the baby bird flying again.

Posted by Jack Perry  at 3:31 PM | Permalink

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Van | June 14, 2007 2:28 PM link

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