More Museum Monitoring
Today was another museum monitoring day. Mary and my goal was to find out what side the pair was actually nesting on. Very confusing.
I was all set up on the south side by 10:30am. One of the adults was on the south cut-out and took off right as I arrived, moving west. A half hour passed before I saw one stooping down on a starling. I lost sight of both as they disappeared into the center of Soldier Field. Another half hour passed before I spotted a peregrine coming in from the west.
“Great! Maybe they’ll land on the south ledge and do some nesting behavior in there!” I said to myself. But alas.
The peregrine soared right over the roof, bypassing the south side. As it reached the north side, it dropped out of sight. By 1pm, I hadn’t seen any activity on the south side and so decided to pack it up for the north side.
As I’d suspected, all the action was on the north side. I watched as they both came in and landed on the north cut-out, squawking and gabbling to each other. The male had prey, which he dropped in the very center of the cut out before taking back off, heading south. The female came in and ate a bit of the prey before taking off for the south.
Forty-five minutes later, they came back and boy, were they noisy. The male stayed up in the air, but the female landed in the cut-out and hopped into the NE corner, making lots and lots of noise. She spent the next 15 minutes wandering around in there. I could only see the top of her head, but I could still hear her.
This was about how things went for the rest of the day. The female seemed slightly aggitated – excited? She hopped around the NE corner a lot, squawking. The male brought her food every so often, dropping it and watching her eat for a few before taking off again. I didn’t seen any copulation.
Mary thinks it is looking far likelier that they had another nest somewhere else that failed and are getting ready to nest again here. Cool!
Chicago Peregrine Falcon Blog 