Pilsen Chicks

•May 8, 2007 • Comments Off on Pilsen Chicks

The Pilsen Chicks 6Today was a really fun day! Mary and I left for the Pilsen site at 9am, armed with her brother’s motion-sensing camera. We hoped to get an ID on the adult female at the Pilsen nest by leaving the camera out near the nest box for several hours. She’s so aggressive that any time you open the door to the nest ledge, she takes off and starts buzzing around in the air, waiting to get a good chance to peg you one. Pretty hard to take a picture when she’s flying in circles at Mach-9 or, worse, flying at your face. That takes a special kind of nature photographer – one that I am not.

I brought both our cameras along, intending to use the little Nikon Coolpix S9 as a back-up to Mary’s brother’s camera. It has an interval setting, which allows me to program it to take a picture once a minute. I bought a kind of nifty flexible tripod that actually wraps very tightly around things, allowing you to mount the camera on fence posts, railing, etc…

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Posted in Chicago Pilsen

Some Excitement at the Museum

•May 7, 2007 • Comments Off on Some Excitement at the Museum

Take-offWell, Mary’s pretty convinced the museum falcons have indeed switched sites from the south to the north. Today, I spent several hours watching the north side and there was the general activity of the last few days. One or both falcons spent time wandering around under the NE corner eave, making all sorts of noises.

Mary came out to watch and we both noted that the female wasn’t laying down, from what we could see. She seemed sort of fidgety. Possibly, she is getting ready to lay an egg. We’ll have to see!

I think I’ve mentioned that the north side of the museum is getting plenty crowded now. At the far NW corner, a pair of kestrels have nested in a hole behind one of the columns for many years. That pair is back and active. Between the peregrine’s new nest site and the kestrels, a pair of crows have built a nest and have, it looks like, maybe 3 to 4 chicks.

The male peregrine has been consistently chasing the crows to ground when they fly up off the nest. At first, I thought this was going to end very badly, but the crows just go into the tree and wait before sailing off really low. From the amount of debris under the nest, including a bunch of rabbit hair, I don’t think the crow chicks are going to go hungry.

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Posted in Chicago South Loop

More from Mary

•May 6, 2007 • Comments Off on More from Mary

More from Mary! I hope one of the MCC chicks gets spotted sometime this season.

Illinois Birds Nesting Outside the State

Jean (b/g 19/C)
Jean fledged from the Evanston Library in 2005. Currently, she is incubating 4 eggs on a bank building in Milwaukee.

Raynie (b/r A/*H)
Raynie fledged from Chicago’s Broadway site in 1995. Currently, she is nesting at the Pleasant Prairie Power Plant in Kenosha, WI. This is her eleventh year nesting at this site. In 1996, she nested at the WEBCO Oak Creek Power Plant in Milwaukee, WI.

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Posted in Chicago North Broadway, IL Evanston, IL Hyde Park, IL Waukegan

Updates from Mary

•May 5, 2007 • Comments Off on Updates from Mary

Mary just sent us an update on all the nests to this date. Wow! What a lot of activity!

125 S. Wacker
This site has been used for nesting since 1989. The 2007 adult male identification has been confirmed. The adult male is Etienne (b/b 7/6, 2002, Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada), the same male from last year. The adult female is suspected to be last years female, Rahn (b/g 01/A, Wisconsin Power and Light Edgewater Generating Station, Sheboygan, WI), but her bands have not been confirmed. They laid their first egg on 3/30/07 and completed a clutch of 4 (unconfirmed) eggs sometime later.

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Posted in Chicago Lakeview, Chicago Lawndale, Chicago MCC, Chicago North Broadway, Chicago Pilsen, Chicago River, Chicago South Wacker, Chicago St. Michael's, Chicago UIC, Chicago Uptown Theater, IL Batavia, IL Evanston, IL Hyde Park, IL Waukegan

A Visit to Wacker!

•May 4, 2007 • Comments Off on A Visit to Wacker!

Wacker Peregrine Falcon (adult female)Today, Mary and I had an appointment to visit the south Wacker pair, who we were both hoping would be the same pair from last year – Etienne and Rahn. We left the museum at 8:30am and arrived at the Wacker building at 9am.

By 9:15am, we were up on the top of the building and ready to open the door to the nest ledge. “Ready?” Mary asked.

She opened the door and looked first south, then north. Last year, the pair nested in the south nest box. This year, they have nested in the north nest box. One of the adults glared at us from the nest box. The other was nowhere to be found. As I snapped pictures, Mary considered the situation.

“See the way she’s sitting? Really low, her wings nice and flared out? That means she’s probably sitting on eggs, so her chicks haven’t hatched yet. She’d be sitting up higher and moving around a lot more if there were chicks under there.”

She did sit very, very still. In fact, as much as we wanted her to get up for a minute so we could get a look at her bands, she didn’t once oblige.

“Man,” I said. “She looks gorgeous. I hope it is Rahn, but I can’t tell. And where the heck is Etienne?”

Mary scanned the sky, but all was quiet.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But, why don’t you roll out a bit and try to get the camera at an angle where we can see a bit more of the floor of the nest.”

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Posted in Chicago South Wacker, IL Evanston

The MCC Birds and Digiscoping

•May 2, 2007 • Comments Off on The MCC Birds and Digiscoping

Pigeon! Yum!Today, I was asked to monitor the MCC birds for the day. Yay! I love that assignment. I arrived on the garage top at 9am and scanned the sky and known perches, but alas, no MCC peregrines.

I did see something steaming in the cool morning air on the top of the stairwell roof, so I swung my scope around to look it over. As I had suspected, it wasn’t a pretty site. However, the freshness of the kill (a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker) meant that I’d just missed one of the adults eating on the stairwell.

Well, of course I did! And it was probably Max. And he was probably eating while holding his banded leg out, nice and steady!

An hour later or so, an adult flew in from the SE, basically commuting up Congress. It soared around the backside of the MCC and then angled up to land on the SW corner of the EPA building. From my perch, I can’t see anything up there, so I settled in to wait it out.

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Posted in Chicago MCC

More Museum Monitoring

•May 1, 2007 • Comments Off on More Museum Monitoring

Taking FlightToday 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.

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Posted in Chicago South Loop

A Museum Pair?!? (Part Deux)

•April 30, 2007 • Comments Off on A Museum Pair?!? (Part Deux)

Peregrine Falcon - Museum Female 2I had some errands to run in the morning on the way to work, so it was already 9:30am by the time I walked up to the north entrance of the museum. I topped the hill and saw a Mercedes limousine and two shuttle buses parked on the sidewalk in front of the north entrance. Odd, since it’s a sidewalk and not a parking area. I then noticed a lot of people milling around by the vehicles and a few police-type fellows leading large German Shepherd’s around on leads.

I considered walking around to the south entrance instead, when I heard a falcon cry and saw a peregrine come screaming in from the west, headed directly towards the north roof edge, right over the heads of all the vehicle people. Wow! No way! Are they BACK?!?

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Posted in Chicago South Loop

The Magic Hedge

•April 29, 2007 • Comments Off on The Magic Hedge

Brrrrring!The weather just keeps getting nicer! What a lovely weekend this has been.

In honor of it all, Sean and I decided to expand our nature outings to include Montrose Point and the Montrose Point Sanctuary. I am embarrassed to admit that I’ve never been, although I’ve heard many, many birders talk about this mystical place in the sanctuary called “The Magic Hedge”.

But first, the MCC falcons. It’s been a very quiet weekend for them, but I have seen them both and they seem just fine and dandy. I still have to find a way to get on top of one of the buildings on the west side of the jail. I’m sort of stumped on that one.

They seem to be shifting their favorite perches more westward. I’ve seen them on the red brick building to the west of the jail with far more frequency and on the Monadnock ledge not at all. The north MCC nesting niches remain pristine. They don’t even seem to be caching food over there, much less perching. It looks sort of sad and lonely, even though I know they are just around the corner.

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Posted in Chicago MCC

The Doldrums

•April 23, 2007 • Comments Off on The Doldrums

Peregrine Falcon MunchiesWhat a very, very grey day today. It reminded me of the doldrums from The Phantom Tollbooth – a grey, misty place where people floated aimlessly in a sea of boredom. Anyway, lucky I have falcons to break me out of the doldrums!

I watched the MCC falcons for about three hours. I’ve come to the conclusion that they are, indeed, nesting on the west side for sure, probably in the northernmost niche. I shall have to find a way to view that niche, if I can.

Max was the most active, sticking pretty close to the MCC for the most part but jaunting off to hunt now and again. I saw Herc come out of the nest and fly straight south twice, but she wasn’t gone long.

Max did well with his hunting, that’s for sure. When I arrived, he was plucking a bird on the SW corner of the EPA building. He delivered that package to the nest and then took off to the west. After about 10 minutes, he came back and landed on the red brick building to the west, where he preened a bit before taking off to the south. This time, after about 10 minutes, he came back with a pigeon and landed right across from me, on the Board of Trade Annex.

I took a zillion pictures of him, many using my telephoto. I hoped at least one would show a legband number, but alas…

Posted in Chicago MCC

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