It's peregrine falcon chick season, and you know what that means. Time for the MTA to release its annual cute photos and video of the adorably fluffy widdle birds of prey getting banded. The process, as you can hear in the video, isn't exactly something they enjoy but also doesn't hurt them. And hey, look at those views!
This year the DEP, working with the MTA, found seven falcon chicks living atop the city's bridges. Four are living atop the Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial, two are on the Throgs Neck and one lucky chick is living atop the Verrazano-Narrows. All of them hatched in early May and all were recently branded by the DEP's wildlife specialist Chris Nadareski. They are also all uniformly cute—especially since you can't actually hear them squawking though the photos.
Right now there are over 20 pairs of peregrine falcons nesting in the Big Apple. You can check out a few more pics of the babies (as well as a few more of their parents and of their million-dollar views) over here. And for a glimpse of some of the previous brandings, go here.
