Mary and I went down to Calumet yesterday. This is a bridge site with so many beams, crossbars and the like, it is horribly difficult to actually see the birds, much less get identification information.
I am happy to report, however, that we not only saw a peregrine come out of one of the previous year’s nest holes during a probable nest exchange, but we got her leg bands!!
Three’s a really nice story this morning in the Chicago Tribune about the St. Michael’s peregrines. Thanks, Sean for pointing that out!
Yesterday, we went to check on the Uptown pair. It seems that “Guy” (b/g G/G), longtime Uptown adult male, has been replaced by his son Stan (b/g 98/K). This mother-son pairing isn’t completely unheard of. In fact, we had another mother-son pair in Hyde Park for awhile — Magnolia and Eddie. Eddie, in fact, wasn’t given a name when he was banded and so the monitors down there coined him “Eddie” for Oedipus. Pretty funny.
Anyway, back to the Uptown. No idea to this point whether G/G was killed by his son, whether he died on his own or whether he is still out there somewhere alive and for some reason abandoned the nest.
Presently, Zoom is sitting on 4 eggs, so things look good for the new pair. Keep you posted!
Mary got email from the Wisconsin team saying that 2009 Evanston Library chick Deborah (b/r 04/E) is nesting at the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh. This bird is the namesake of a longtime Evanston falcon monitor, so that makes it all doubly cool. Her mate is named Hondo (b/g) H/56, a 2009 falcon produced at the Edgewater Generating Station in Sheboygan, WI.
Their time lapse web cam can be found here: https://portal.housing.uwosh.edu/apps/Cameras/FalconLapse/
Refresh your browser every once in awhile to get a new shot. Congrats go out to both Deborahs!
Those bad South Loop peregrines decided not to use their brand-spanking new and beautiful nest box this year, for reasons that defy understanding. Instead, they’ve returned to the building they nested on in 2009 and have laid three eggs in a planter. It’s a safe enough spot, so that’s good. They are wild animals and control their own destiny, so what are you gonna do?
Mary, Matt and I went over to check things out this afternoon. As we walked up to the building, we saw a nest exchange take place. When we arrived at the actual nest site, a smaller peregrine sat snuggled into a planter. Our movements caused him to pop up off the nest and ‘lo and behold, it was Mr. M.!
Illinois Peregrine Update – 11 April 2011
Chicago Peregrine Program
Mary Hennen, project director2011 nesting season is underway. We have some pairs on eggs and are still checking on others. If a site is bolded, new information about 2011 is included. Be sure to check out our webcams.
UIC – http://media.uic.edu/community/falcons/
Waukegan – http://www.earthcam.com/usa/illinois/midwestgen/
Evanston – http://www.epl.org/falconcam/Please continue to send any reports or questions to (mhennen@fieldmuseum.org)
Thanks!
Mary
**BREEDING PAIRS**
Chicago, McKinley Park
Adult Female: unidentified
Adult Male: unidentified
Pair present in 2011. In March, four birds were observed at the site. The nest ledge is inaccessible and no good view into the nest is possible. In 2010, one adult was identifed as unbanded (believed to be the male), while the other adult had a b/g band. In 2010, 3 young fledged from this site without any issues.
Made a site visit to St. Mary’s today with Matt and Mary. While M&M checked the nest box — five eggs now! — I got the ID for the adult female. It is b/g R/90, same as last year. The database has since been updated with her info (it wasn’t in there last year). R/90 didn’t get a name, but she was born in 2007 on a bridge in Iowa. I’ve decided to call her “Mary”. Seems right to me!
We are scrambling to keep up.
Egg count: 22-23
Hi all!
I realize things have been sparse on my end for some time. There’s a reason, believe it or not.
The Field Museum has a brand spanking new web site. It looks really nice and also provides for much more employee participation.
So, Mary Hennen (director of Chicago Peregrine Program) has decided we’re going to do a peregrine page from the Field Museum. As that will make the information I put here just a duplicate of the information there, I decided to phase this one out and work with her on the shared site.
I can’t give a specific timeline on the launch, but until it does launch, I’ll write really short posts here just to keep everyone happy! When the site does launch, there will be a link here!
For now, I can report that the peregrines are in full courting mode. Waukegan wins this years first egg award, so congrats to Waukegan! As always, if you go to my links page, you’ll see the Waukegan web cam up and running along with Evanston, South Loop, etc.
My pair, the prison birds, have been active and copulating, but thus far don’t appear to be sitting on eggs. I hope we’ll have prison babies finally!
So anyway, good to be back for another season and I’ll keep you guys posted on stuff!
