A Day at Holcim - Adults Identified and Almost Certain 1st Egg!
March 25, 2012 - Mississauga - Holcim
Tracy Simpson Reports:
Frank, Bruce and I all met down at Holcim today to follow up on my observations yesterday of a potential egg at the site. While we do not have a sight line into the nest ledge itself, we knew that we could ascertain whether the female did lay an egg based on the adults behaviour… …and so we watched. For 5 or more hours. It was the best show on earth!
Our first sighting of either adult was of the male as he came in to the nest ledge. His stay was short as he moved to a lower roof close to where we were standing. We were able to read his band number right away and he is none other than Storm wearing a Black recovery band with 94 over D clearly legible. He was hatched in 2004 at the Etobicoke Sun Life building to Marco and Angel and were it not for the community stewardship and the CPF voluteers he would not be the success that he is today. His fledge was daring and dangerous as recounted here in a post made 8 years ago..
Posted by Mark Nash in 2004 - “Storm” as he has been named, was the first to fledge this evening. After coming almost directly to the ground, Storm spent much of his time running around the south side of Bloor Street causing a huge disruption of the local traffic and causing quite a scene on the neighbouring side streets. After receiving a telephone call from a patron in the Pub, we were dispatched and on the run once again to respond to a downed peregrine. Upon our arrival, we witnessed the community in action with close to a dozen concerned citizens surrounding Storm to prevent him from wandering once again out into the traffic on Bloor Street. Apparently Storm crossed Bloor Street at least twice not more than three feet off the ground in low flight on one occasion and walking on the ground in between the moving cars on Bloor Street on the second occasion. The group quickly moved into action stopping traffic while Storm crossed Bloor Street to the north side. He was then detained by the surrounding crowd until we arrived several minutes later.
Now a “man” and resident male at Holcim, he is a thrill to watch. He left his perch near Avonhead Road to hunt and minutes later brought in a small bird to the nest ledge. He took the food into the ledge and disappeared but we could hear him calling. He called to the female to coax her in and when she didn’t respond, he flew into the property and found a building to stash his package. He then flew up to a tall stack to preen. Shortly thereafter, the female appeared landing on the nest ledge. There she stayed for awhile but was too far away for a really good look. Storm left his perch on the stack and joined her for an opportunity to mate. He then took off and not 20 feet away from us, snatched a pigeon right out of mid air. No stoop, just a snatch. He took the meal to a low roof near the nest ledge where the female joined him, they exchanged the food and she set in to eat. Not 5 minutes into her meal, Storm was on the nest ledge and a third male interloper was in the air above the pair. The two resident adults quickly escorted the rogue out of their air space sending the bird west. The pair then returned to the nest ledge, checked in the back on something and flew to the center of the plant to mate. Things calmed down for a spell and the female returned to the ledge for a nap. It wasn’t long before the local Red Tailed made an appearance which drew the female off of her perch right over our heads where she grounded the hawk with a warning stoop. More food exchanges and more mating capped off the afternoon adventures with several visits to the nest ledge for brief disappearances into the corner. We are fairly certain that the first egg has arrived.
Just as we were packing up to go, the female came in on the low roof right beside Avonhead Road. We were able to set the scope up again and get a look at our girl and she wears a Black over Green band with S over 40 clearly marked. She was named Caspian and was hatched in 2008 at the Bank One nest site in Canton, Ohio to the infamous Maverick and Priscilla. Although she originally was given a USFW band, it is clearly no longer there leaving her right leg bare.
Phew!! A fantastic day of watching peregrines! Bruce, Frank and I all agree that based on behaviour, the first egg did arrive last night. While we can’t visually confirm this, all three of us are confident of our conclusions. Way to go Storm and Caspian and congratulations Holcim!!!
Fatal error: Call to undefined function post_gallery_get_images() in /var/www/html/w/wp-content/themes/cpf200903/index.php on line 29