Friday, May 15, 2009

Black Falcon Eggs

I lived in an old house with lots of windows and rooms that sat on a hill. The paint was chipping and the decor was minimal. In a back room there was a Peregrine Falcon that I cared for. The back room had 2 walls of windows that could look out through another set of windows at the land beneath the hill. It was a female raptor that had laid eggs. Males were hard to come by and the falcons are endangered, which meant that these eggs were special. They were black eggs, a color that no bird species lays.  She had laid them into a velvet-lined box that functioned as her nest.  I entered the room to check on the eggs and the eggs fell out. One cracked and a yolk spilled out. The other one cracked but was solid inside because it was farther along.  I felt terrible that the eggs had broken and were lost. I set out to the park in the valley, which was the closest thing to a natural forest in the area.  I knew there were falcons in the area. We set out with my mini speakers and ipod filled with bird songs in hopes of attracting a male falcon to our care.  We spotted one across a stream and started playing the songs. It was interested. But, so were tourists and random passerbyes. I had to shoo people away and one woman took offense and demanded to see our permits for snatching an endangered bird. She called the police and we fled the scene without our bird.  I knew that we'd be back for the bird, but running as fast as we could away from the area was all I could think of. We came back to the house and the female falcon was perched on her branch. I looked forward to a new clutch of eggs, but wondered how we could lure that male bird without attracting lots of attention.