Follow falcon drama — live

Two fierce-looking adults set up house above a beautiful garden downtown, bring two babies into the world and lovingly dote on them until it's time to kick them out of the condo.

The young ones are only 6 weeks old. How will they survive?

It's the ultimate reality show, available 24/7 on the Internet, thanks to a "nest cam" hidden inside a large white box at the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building on South Temple.

The box — located on the northeast corner — is home to two mature peregrine falcons and their young, hatched (with faithful falcon fans watching live) on Memorial Day.

In a week or two, somewhere around July 8, when the fledglings are nudged out of the nest by their parents to take their first flights, nobody will be more nervous than Bob Walters, watchable wildlife program coordinator for the Utah Department of Natural Resources.

Although he's been through the ritual dozens of times since the first pair of peregrines to take up residence at the old Hotel Utah raised three babies in 1986, Walters still feels like a first-time father when an egg begins to crack.

He was heartbroken last year when three chicks hatched and died several hours later, for reasons still not known.

"Perhaps it was some kind of toxin in the pigeon meat they ate," says Walters, "but it's hard to say. Nature is unpredictable — it's natural to have failure. Still, you always feel helpless when you lose one. It's a reminder that no matter how much we'd like to help, humans have very little control over what happens in the bird world. It's up to the birds."

Walter says this as he watches the mother peregrine through his binoculars from a shady garden bench below the nest box. He wanted to spend his lunch break talking about the falcons in the hope of getting more people interested in the saga playing out on the 10th floor.

"We're at the No. 1 tourist destination in the state, with people from all over the world walking right underneath this box every day," he says. "For somebody who wants to bring more people into the conservation tent, how can it get any better? I love talking about these birds. Once you get me started, I'll be here all day."

When it's time for the young falcons to take flight ("Hell Week" is what Walters calls it), he and volunteers will be on call around the clock to rescue the fledglings from busy streets and sidewalks.