PEREGRINES COURT, DECLAN ROCK OUT and EVERYONE SLEEPS IN

After a hard night of rocking out... Declan decided to sleep in this Monday morning. His parents happily obliged and snored for an hour and half longer than usual.Declan (I mean, just LOOK at him... a TOTAL rock star) enjoyed a few breakfasts and his mother and I, an entire pot of coffee. Now full, the entire Haas family decided it was time to take a trip. First stop, oddly enough, turned out to be lunch. Did I mention that we move slow on holidays? In accordance with our new fitness goals, a turkey sub with no mayo proved to be both healthy and delicious. The family's hunger was now subsiding, so this was the perfect time for me to pop the question:

Can we go watch the falcons?Happily, they responded with a rousing, "Yes!" So off we went to Uncle Frank's beach.Not two minutes after we got out of the Volvo and finished stretching our legs, the Severn River PEREGRINE FALCONS appeared in the sky over the river. Darting between the puffy white and grey clouds, in and out of the blue skies and sunbeams, the male falcon and the visibly larger female falcon were conducting an wildly acrobatic aerial display. I felt like I was watching nature's version of the Blue Angels, the US Navy's best impersonators of the PEREGRINE. The Blue Angels perform here in May every year for the Naval Academy's Commissioning Week.At one point, both falcons streaked into the middle of a passing flock of CEDAR WAXWINGS over the Severn River. PEREGRINE FALCONS (click to view Bill Hubick's deluxe photo) are exceptionally fast fliers, capable of reaching speeds up to 69 mph in direct pursuit of prey. Cool, yes? Well check this out: in a hunting stoop from nearly a half a mile up, a Peregrine can reach speeds of 200 mph as they plummet toward their prey. Needless to say, the Haases were thoroughly impressed with today's show. And Uncle Frank says hello too.While we were there, we met up up with two folks from the bridge painting company named Gary and Paul. Along with their workers, these two guys crisscross the country, painting bridges and other hard-to-reach areas. Gary installed the scrape that helped a pair successfully fledge chicks on the Ben Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia. He told Emery, Declan and I that no one else really had the desire to climb that high with the box, rocks and materials. Lucky for the falcons, Gary and Paul are used to great heights.Hopefully, our local falcons will have their scrape installed and ready for occupancy soon. I shall keep you posted.

Good Courting,

Dan