Kip Wylie, who tends the 11th. St. Bridge and Tacoma peregrine falcon
aerie, graciously invited Clarice and me to attend a grand opening of the
bridge this morning 6/23/2000), The two of us arrived at 8:20 A.M to sign
releases, don hardhats and get safety stuff, and we started by viewing
Mickee sitting on her electrical wire. I checked out the counterweight at the
downtown Tacoma end of the bridge looking for Guy, and saw an immature
peregrine on the weight. One of the youngsters had flown across from the
nest to the opposite end of the bridge!

As we watched the precocious youngster looked back at home base, started
flapping and hanging on-- looking like those old time movies of people trying
to get airborne in early attempts at flying machines-- and finally took off,
flying all the way back to the nest counterweight. Mickee jumped off her wire
and followed her kid in, kekking all the while. She landed on one of the
highest cross braces for a better, motherly view.

At 8:30 they closed the bridge to traffic and opened it to inspection. We
rode up on the bridge deck and got a good closeup view of the top of the nest
counterweight. All four youngsters are still active and very much feathering
out. This is the first time I have ever been able to see all four-- one is much
shyer than the other three. All appear to be active, however. Precocious
youngster is a bit more active seeming, as it ran along the top of the
counterweight while we went by. Two of them just sat out and gawked at
us,while the shy one tried to hide. Mickee beamed (actully, she had a few
scolding words to say to us, but she didn't fly anywhere).

By 8:40 we were all back down and the falcon's nest ledge back up. No more
flights by the time we left at 9:00, but Mickee didn't miss a chance to scold
another bicycle rider.

Jerry Broadus
P.O. Box 249
Puyallup, WA. 98371