The Case of the Missing Falcons (A true tale told in noir style)

March 20, 2006

It was Monday on a cold San Francisco morning when I got an email from David Gregorie aka ‘Columbo’ letting me know the famous San Francisco falcons were missing in action. It turns out they had failed to show up for some sort of kinky webcam thing where people tune in to watch them mate and raise their chicks over the Internet!

Of course I had been following both of them all year so I knew where they were hanging out. So Tuesday, we get together and do a stakeout…

I came prepared with my digital camera and a long 400mm lens to get some documentation of the missing birds.

We met at the corner of Beale and Mission next to a construction site. Pile drivers were doing a tango in my head from the site next door…

Coming up to my office building, David had spotted the birds hanging out on 201 Mission and using his years of investigative experience, deduced that the birds had flown the nest so to speak and that 201 Mission was the new site!!!

‘Woah I sez’, that’s the same conclusion me and that Kanit dame had come up with.

So we proceed to check it out.

David had done some preliminary footwork and had tried to work his way up into the building but had been stymied by red tape. Seems the powers that be were on a tour and could not be reached. So he left a message for them and met me.

We proceeded to check out the outside of the building, but the birds were in hiding. So I sez, ‘Let’s take a walk down to the waterfront and check out their old hangout on the Bay Bridge’.

‘Ok’ he sez.

And we do.

I show him the spot where I was standing when I spotted the two falcons doing the deed on the back side of 201 Mission. This is right by a sculpture called Cupid’s Span, some weirdo beatnik’s idea of modern art ( a giant bow and arrow maybe 60 feet high growing out of the ground)

Kind of appropriate don’t you think? But I digress…

We check out the bridge but can’t find the birds. So I suggest we stroll back.

We do, and that was it for the lunchtime caper.

I tell him, that if he gets through the red tape, to call me and I’ll drop my other projects and join him again.

So I go back to work. He calls me and sez that he is still having trouble getting through and isn’t sure how much longer he can stick around, what with the pile drivers doing the tango and all that…

Then around 2, he calls me again and says “Can you come now?”

“Can I come now? Like heck I can and tell him I’ll be there in 2 minutes”

I grab my camera, and head for the elevator. Dash across the street, past the pile drivers doing the tango and into the entry to 201 Mission, where David is waiting. He’s been dragging his feet, so that he doesn’t get there before I do and sez we need to find a maintenance guy by the name of Sam. Hmmm. Sam and Falcons in San Francisco? Who’d a thunk it?

Sam is waiting up on the second floor at security check-in. We show them our State of California ID, and get passes and go off to the elevators. Sam has to call for the security people to unlock the 30th floor penthouse, our destination. Falcons in a penthouse?

Up we went, and when we got there, it opened into the empty giant penthouse office suite. Very snazzy digs I say! (Well not really but that is what I thought)

Once we got oriented, Sam shows us the correct side of the building and we check out the rooms. Sam is about to open the sliding glass door to the terrace, when I look out a window and spot Gracie!

She sees me through the dark glass and starts kakking at me. Hmmm. I don’t think we should go out.

I pull out my camera and I actually have to back up to take her picture. Seems my lens will only focus down to 10 feet and I was too close! Then I still couldn’t get all of her in the shot and realized that I still had that 1.4 teleconverter attached. I take it off and tell David, hold this. He does and I takes some glamour shots of the dame falcon.

We continue to explore trying to figure out just why she is hanging out on the ledge. Sam shows us the planter box that runs the length of the ledge, but we can’t see down into it. We’re going to have to climb up on the window sill, which runs about 4 feet high. There weren’t any chairs to stand on to brace ourselves and we were about to do it the hard way when Sam lets out that there is a 10 foot high folding ladder in the office that we can use.

Great. So David climbs up and takes a look and sez, ‘Yaow there’s an egg out there!!’

Seems dame falcon had made a scrape about 2 feet in diameter in the dirt and gravel right at the end of the planter . She had made quite a little love nest so to speak…

So then I climb up the ladder and figure a shot of the egg would be a good thing to do. I try to focus, but I am too close again! I left the house with one lens, never thinking I would end up standing on the 30th floor trying focus on a egg through a dirty window while I was balanced on a ladder. Some boy scout I was!!

I persevered. I climbed the ladder to the top just high enough to get the egg in focus, and David steadied the ladder for me. I was able to fire three shots before I started to get dizzy and had to come down.

Hey I say, ‘Let’s try to read the band on her leg!’ David tries, but his binoculars don’t focus that close. But mine do and I can make out some of the numbers. I put the tele-extender back on to get a close shot and take some photos of the band so the powers that be can run a background check on this bird.

While I’m trying to figure out the rest of the band, this group of people come up into the room and say “What are you people doing in here! You’re not supposed to be here!”

Seems David had cut through red tape a little too quickly and some feathers had been ruffled so to speak.

It looked for a moment like we were about to spend some time in the cooler for trespass, but David stayed cool and was able to smooth everything over. I’ll have to let him tell how that was done.

Anyway, I let out that while we may not supposed to be here, there was something that they should know and proceeded to show them the photo of the egg and then we showed them the dame falcon sitting out on the ledge who was still watching everything that was happening inside.

Then we explained that these were protected birds and you couldn’t just go out there and shoo her off the ledge, and throw the egg away, seeing as how there was a huge fine for doing something like that.

Oh they say…

“So how long is this going to take?”

David tells them ‘Oh about three months!’

Oooh they didn’t want to hear that. But finally they got the drift that these birds were really cool. And then they said they would contact SCPBRG to find out the details. Which they did. And you know the rest.

So it was time to leave. We made sure that Sam was ok and would not get into trouble and he said he was going to be fine. Sam if you are reading this, then thanks for taking good care of us and the birds.

We went back down the elevator and left the building. David was going to call Janet to let her know what we had learned but the pile drivers were still doing the tango next door, so we went back into the lobby to do the phone calls. I told her I had photos to send her, and told her I would not post anything till PG&E had been told first. I’m not used to keeping secrets, but this time it was necessary for the birds and the webcam.

So that’s the story.

And it’s true, every word