Both young Falcons were well past the ‘baby”stage and at the error of sounding anthropomorphic it was interesting to see the differences in their character, personality, and approach.
Mary was much more content to sit quietly for just the right moment. Max, with all the exuberance of a young teenage male was ready to explore, and begin to show his interest in other parts of the territory.
He began to find ways to harass the incumbent Magpies. And while the Maggies seemed to take it all seriously, he seemed to enjoy the interactions. EE has a photo of him eyeing off some Maggies on their favourite post, and it is pretty obvious what he had in mind. The fence and gate is a territory boundary for about 3 families of Maggies, and during nesting season they relentlessly pursue one-another for control of the fence. Off-season, it’s more of a communal meeting spot.
Max was ready to challenge them.

Mary had picked up an old Raven’s wing and Max decided he wanted part of the action, so he chased her round the paddock until he caught hold of part of it. With his momentum it turned Mary to the ground and they both landed holding part of the wing. Max, however conceded, and a few minutes later they were hunting together again.

I saw Max come off a branch and circle out toward where I was standing. He did several circles and I’d not seen him do this before. Then with every wing and tail feather stretched out, without a wing-flap he began to circle and rise. He’d found an updraft.
Surprisingly he quickly rose to a height where I could only just see him.

I had to wonder what the view would be like from up there. After all he didn’t have a map, or any real set landmarks. Over there was the nesting treeline, Mary sitting on a fence. The roadway out toward the beach. The housing estate in the distance.

He stopped circling, and set a long slow Falcon glide and travelled way out beyond the home paddock, and over the open fields until in the end, a kilometre or more away, I lost sight of him.
Gone.

It lead me to ponder how much lift the bird must get. When the wings are wide open, and the tail completely spread the sail area compared to the body weight must make such circling in a thermal easy. Someone could do a PHD on it.

I turned back to find Mary sitting quietly on a post, seemingly uninterested in his departure.

About 30 minutes later as we were getting ready to go. I took one more look way down the paddock, and lo, was that a small spot in the sky? And there running on really tightly tucked wings was the wander. He was on his way back. Again, I had to ponder, after going all that far out, how did he know the way back to the home paddock.

He sailed in at top speed as if nothing had happened, flared out the wings to brake his speed and dropped onto the branch alongside Mary.
So interesting to watch their different approaches to growing up.

Enjoy