River Birds, etc.

•May 20, 2011 • Comments Off on River Birds, etc.

Busy day today. Went to several sites, but here’s the interesting bits.

The river birds have again failed this year. The eggs were cold and two of them were broken. This is sad news, especially for their biggest supporter, Dave T., who sits at the desk nearest to the window overlooking the nest. Sometimes it takes a few years for a pair to be successful, so we’ll look forward to next year! Dave T., keep hope.

On to the quarry. We actually saw a quarry adult, but couldn’t get the bands. It is banded black over green. I had a moment of dismay when it looked as though the adult was going to kill one of two kestrels that were in the territory. It missed the kestrel, thankfully. Mary and I think the kestrels are also nesting in the area, so they may be getting on each other’s nerves if they both have chicks they are raising.

Posted in Chicago Other Locations, Chicago River

Lakeview Adult ID!

•May 17, 2011 • Comments Off on Lakeview Adult ID!

Simon, "Mergel Funsky" and ScruffyTry as we might, we’ve never gotten an ID from the Lakeview site, even though there have been birds there for years. This year, Mary and I met a man named Bob who lived in the building. We gave him our cards and chatted with him a bit. He knew about the birds and seemed eager to help if he could. A few days later, we received and email from Mergel Funsky, also a resident of the building and a friend of Bob’s. To our delight, he had pictures of one of the adults sitting on his balcony. To our extreme delight, the leg bands of said adult were readable. So, without further ado, let me introduce you to Lakeview’s adult female: Scruffy (b/g N/38), born 2007 at the Firstar Center in Milwaukee, WI. This is the same site that Evanston’s adult female, Nona, came from, although the two have different parents.

Continue reading ‘Lakeview Adult ID!’

Posted in Chicago Lakeview

ABC 7

•May 10, 2011 • Comments Off on ABC 7

ABC 7 aired a really nice story last night. You can see it here: ABC 7 Peregrine Story.

Mary was really excited to meet Ron Magers and said he was just as nice in person as he appears on the news.

Tune back in for exciting news from a helpful soul up by the Lakeview site!

Posted in Chicago Lakeview, Chicago St. Michael's, Chicago UIC

News Article

•May 5, 2011 • Comments Off on News Article

Mary and KevinJust found this really nice article about 2008 South Wacker chick Big Red.

No, wait. I didn’t just find this. Husband Sean sent this link to me way back in March and I just remembered it. ANYWAY, it’s always great when we have one of our Chicago kids make it through their first year and go on to establish a nest of their own!

Oh, now I’m checking back in email quickly and Sean sent me this article about Big Red too. Sigh. Man, I’m lucky Sean’s paying attention!! Thanks, buddy!

Posted in Chicago South Wacker

Chicks in Waukegan

•May 5, 2011 • Comments Off on Chicks in Waukegan

Waukegan Webcam 2It appears as though Waukegan has one, if not two, hatched chicks as of yesterday. Two more eggs to go up there! Evanston should be hatching any time now and UIC probably over the weekend, so make sure to check in on the webcams!

Posted in IL Waukegan

Trip to the Quarry

•May 4, 2011 • Comments Off on Trip to the Quarry

Mary and I took a trip out to the McCook Quarry. She’s had reports of nesting again this year and one observer gave her a few hints regarding where to look. We were out for maybe three hours and saw one adult peregrine for about 20 seconds. It came in to land high on the quarry wall, sat for a second looking around and then hop-waddled across a rock only to disappear into a crevice. Obviously can’t say for sure, but behavior would be consistent with a nesting site.

Posted in IL Other Locations

Calumet & the Nikon ProStaff

•May 3, 2011 • Comments Off on Calumet & the Nikon ProStaff

Calumet BridgeMary 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!!

Continue reading ‘Calumet & the Nikon ProStaff’

Posted in Equipment, IL Calumet River

Tribune Story

•April 20, 2011 • Comments Off on Tribune Story

Three’s a really nice story this morning in the Chicago Tribune about the St. Michael’s peregrines. Thanks, Sean for pointing that out!

Posted in Chicago St. Michael's

Uptown Theater

•April 19, 2011 • Comments Off on Uptown Theater

Uptown Adult Female: Zoom

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!

Posted in Chicago Uptown Theater

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