Adults Still Present at MEC
September 29, 2011 - Mississauga - Executive Centre
Tracy Simpson Reports:
While in Mississauga this past week, I was able to spend some time at the Mississauga Executive Centre site and check in on the resident adult pair. Upon arrival, there was no immediate sign of either male or female until I circled back around the far side of building 4. This seems to be a very popular roosting site for both of these adults as I have seen them there off and on all season. The male was sitting right on the southeast corner of the building and a little further down the ledge, feathers were just a flyin’ out of the sunken section of the ledge. At first I couldn’t see what was causing the shower of feathers until the resident female finally popped up onto the edge with an enormous pigeon in her talons. It was clear that she had been eating for a while as her crop was quite full and her face quite decorated with bits of food. After a good 20 minutes of continued plucking, she left the meal and headed directly over to the nest box where she stood and called her mate. The male took up where she left off, moving into the ledge on 4 building and snacking on what remained of the pigeon. The female remained on the landing platform of the box for the next 2 hours, enjoying the rain shower that was currently falling and then preening herself once it had stopped. The resident male took up a better viewing position on building 2 and followed suit with his own preen-fest. The female then left the nest box and headed back over to building 4 to finish off any remaining scraps of food only to return to the box for a good long nap afterwards.
Although this pair diligently incubated their clutch of eggs this year, they were unsuccessful in hatching any young. This is the first time in the history of this nest site that young have not been produced and is in keeping with the lower productivity we have seen at nearly all nest sites in southern Ontario this year. This is where the vigilance of the monitoring the CPF does pays huge dividends in that we track these trends in productivity of this still recovering species year after year. The decades of experience, statistics and knowledge we now have allows us to immediately respond to negative trends and assist the Peregrine falcons breeding in southern Ontario, thus ensuring their future success in producing strong and healthy young. We look forward to seeing this pair continue to successfully breed at the MEC site next year as they did in the years past. As I currently watch this resident pair reaffirming their bond, I am very excited about seeing them with young in the next breeding season and I will continue to visit with them again next week so please check back for further updates.