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Walters holds "Early Bird," a peregrine falcon fledgling that tried to fly from the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

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A Web cam for the birds     The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints owns the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, where the peregrine falcon nest box is located.    Church and building officials installed two cameras and a microphone in the box.    The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources uses that equipment to run its Peregrine Falcon Cam, which you can watch at http://wildlife.utah.gov/peregrine.

The annual "Hell Week" in downtown Salt Lake City got under way bright and early Monday morning when one of two peregrine falcons hatched in a nest box on the 12th floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building decided to fly the coop.

The first flight went well, with a young male finding a perch on the old Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' administrative building due east of the Joseph Smith Memorial. A second attempt was less successful.

"Around mid-morning one of the adults was near the nest box and [the young bird] decided go back," said Bob Walters, the Watchable Wildlife Coordinator for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. "He was headed for about the 8th floor. He had some slight contact with the

A 37-day-old peregrine falcon sits on the Joseph Smith Memorial Building's roof after being rescued Monday. The bird crashed into a flower bed on its maiden flight and was returned to its nest box by volunteers who keep an eye on the falcons. (Anna Kartashova / The Salt Lake Tribune)

Walters rescued the fledgling, which passed a quick physical and was banded by Walters, who returned it to the nest box.

At least a half dozen volunteers, known as the Peregrine Falcon Watchpost Team, will be on hand from dawn to dusk for roughly the next 10 days in case "Early Bird," as he was dubbed, or his sibling decides to try again. Volunteer Vivian Schneggenburger quoted her husband as saying "see you in a couple of weeks," as she ran out the door Monday to take part in her fifth year of Falcon Watch.

"We are going to call him Early Bird," she said of the rescued fledgling. "He wasn't supposed to fly until tomorrow."

Schneggenburger and other volunteers stay in touch by radio. Some were stationed Monday on the 23rd floor of the LDS Church Office Building to get a bird's-eye view.

"I just love this. We get to watch these wonderful birds of prey in town. It is amazing how they have adapted to all the noise and the people," she said. "It is really cool to be able to help them and be a part of it."

But wild birds and cities are not always compatible. Peregrines in the wild typically nest on very tall cliffs. When a young bird attempts to fly, it usually has two or three landings and flights before reaching the ground. This gives the birds more time to figure out how to fly. But there are few landing strips available for the birds in downtown Salt Lake City.

So volunteers round up the birds when they hit the ground, and Walters delivers them, via elevator, back to the nest.

Not all the falcon watchers are on the ground. One reason Walters knows roughly what time the bird decided to fly the coop is an e-mail sent by someone from Vancouver, Canada, who was watching the nest box webcam at the time.

"This peregrine pair has developed quite a following," said Walters.

brettp@sltrib.com