Back to London
Wow, the peregrines have really been surprising this year. I’ve posted about the fights Sean and I witnessed when we were tracking the river birds. The first fight took place over Prudential Two and the second, and most recent, in the skies above Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive. Between those two battles, the nest at Mag Mile failed. When I reported the second fight to Mary, I wondered out-loud whether it was possible that the Mag Mile birds were looking to renest and had wandered into the river birds territory in their quest to find a new site. Mary admitted she’d wondered the same thing.
Cut to a week or so later. Mary called me to say she’d received and email from a man named David. Turns out, he reads this blog! Also, turns out he works in the London Guarantee building, which is a site the river birds have used for nesting from time to time. David and his co-workers reported that a pair of peregrines had been hanging around right outside the windows of their office. Apparently, they’d caused quite the stir and had become, to some extent, celebrities/mascots for the inhabitants of the office. Could this be our wandering river pair?
I motored down to Mary’s office to get more information.
“I figured you’d come bursting through the door as soon as you got that message,” Mary said, laughing. “Here, let me show you something.”
She pulled up a photo David had emailed along with his message.
“Tell me what you think about this.”
The photo showed an adult peregrine sitting atop a familiar structure. I recognized the structure as a spherical ornamental element that graces the London Guarantee balcony site. Not only had David managed to get a picture of this adult peregrine, but he’d also managed to get a clear enough picture that the leg bands were readable. Amazing. LOVE it when that happens. The leg band numbers, black over green “22” over “C”, immediately started bells ringing.
“22/C…” I said. “That number. REAL familiar.”
Mary, grinning, gestured for me to continue down that thought path. It took me a minute, but I finally figured it out.
“Autumn Hope, the Mag Mile female!” I said, snapping my fingers.
“Right!”
“Wow.”
“And David says they have eggs. We’ll be going up to take a look at the site soon, ok?”
Wow. So, the Mag Milers have renested AND potentially kicked the river birds out of their territory, eh? Like I said, surprising season!
Chicago Peregrine Falcon Blog 