Falcon Chicks

In the previous post, I wrote about a falcon's nest in a neighboring apartment verandah. Today, I nervously went to the apartment and knocked on the door. The resident, a cheerful ajummah, welcomed me as soon as the word, "Seh" (bird) left my mouth. She guided me to the verandah and told me about the birds as I watched them and took pictures.

Don't worry the pictures below are much clearer and less obscured - I just put this one in as a teaser.
She said the birds were "hwang JoRongHe" and I am uncertain how to write that in Korean and find the english name. I may have the name wrong - I am sure of the first three syllables but I may be off with the 'he'. Babelfish tells me I just typed "hwang bird cage" and I hope that is not what the lady told me. There were six chicks and three flew off. I thought there were only two on the verandah...

...but then I looked around the planters and found a third (the left hand bird in both pictures is the same bird). The one on the verandah deck looks to be the youngest.

I was surprised to hear about six (or possible five- the smallest chick may not be in a good way) healthy offspring. Falcons, and most birds, typically have clutches perhaps as large as six but with the expectation that many will die, leaving one or two to reach adulthood.

From CBC's Quirks and Quarks (click the link to hear an interview on the subject):

Parents often produce too many young to raise and, as a result, the natural world is rife with infanticide. Mothers will ignore some offspring and prefer others.

On the other hand, if the stress of close human activity is not too much, a verandah is a great place to be. The birds are safe from predators and from falling off the 'cliff'. Also, the ajummah supplies some food to the chicks.

Human activity nearby is a serious problem for many birds so I probably will not return to the apartment to take more photos. I may upload a short video but my computer is reaching the end of it's useful lifespan and I am concerned about downloading the Videoegg software here. Perhaps I will do that on my office computer.

I don't know why the falcons chose that apartment to make a nest. Well, I do know that it is one of the few without an outer layer of glass doors so it is easily accessable but I don't know if the woman somehow encouraged the birds or what. As I wrote earlier, the chicks can be darn loud and not everyone would be pleased to have them so close.