Sicko
Ok! I’m finally updating the blog today. My apologies for my tardiness, but I do have a good reason this time. On the 17th of May, Sean and I spent a lovely, sunny day out and about monitoring the St. Mary’s and MCC sites. Sean had been sick with a cold and had missed two days of work the previous week, so Sunday was his first day out in the fresh air. As for me, I felt GREAT…until Sunday night.
Long story short, I caught Sean’s cold and lost my voice. No big. I felt sort of lousy, but not bad enough to stay home from work, so I made it through Thursday. By Thursday afternoon, my voice was completely gone and my throat felt swollen shut. My husband and co-workers began hinting that maybe I should see a doctor. I told them not to worry, it was just ebola. But, Friday things had gotten worse, so I went to the doc.
Turns out I had a pretty bad upper respiratory infection, so the doc put me on a heavy dose of antibiotics (neat note: the antibiotics he gave me are generally prescribed for anthrax, which I thought was interesting) and sent me back home with instructions to stay in bed until I could talk again.
I had my WHOLE holiday weekend planned out with a LOT of peregrine watching between plans with friends. I was really looking forward to it all. Instead, I camped out on the couch for 4 days terrifying my husband with my death rattle.
I got back to work on Tuesday (the 26th), but wasn’t healthy enough to go out to any bandings until Friday (the 29th). So, I’m back into the mix now, more or less. I still sound a bit naaasal, but the doc says the infection is gone and its just the last vestiges of this stupid cold.
I did keep track of what was going on, so I will be back-posting. Look back to see the banding info from Waukegan, Evanston, Uptown, Broadway and Wacker! A post on the UIC banding will be up soon and then it will be time for the jail chicks to pop up!
I had email from Dan Cozza today saying that he isn’t seeing a whole lot of activity at the MCC. I agree. I’ve noticed that Herc and Max have shifted most of their activity south, so the garage top is no longer directly in their flight path. As well, Herc is 12 this year, which makes her one of the five oldest peregrines we have in Illinois. It may be that we’ll see less chicks from Herc and Max, since peregrines tend to produce less offspring as they age. Still, I have seen them going in and out of the western niche with food, so I expect they have at least one chick in there. Watch them surprise me with four!
I’ve been looking over the MCC timeline for the last few years to get some idea of when to expect the jail chicks to make their first appearance. The first chick out on the ledge has been on 6/9 (2006), 6/15 (2007) and 6/16 (2008). The first chick to fledge from the MCC has been 6/12 (2006), 6/18 (2007) and 6/20 (2008). Based on behavior, I would guess that we’d see the first chick somewhere around 6/10 this year. Hmmm, maybe I should start a betting pool!
Chicago Peregrine Falcon Blog 