May 07, 2012 - Niagara Falls
CPF Postmaster Reports:
Monday May 7th - 2012
Hi All,
We fell out of bed at 7, grabbed bagels and coffees at the gas station and headed to NF as rain was forecast by 10am. 
The pefa in the box was again fidgetty and changing position often, as
shown in the first three pix below. No sighting of the second pefa.
Fourth pic shows actual viewing distance without benefit of zooming.
Unfortunately, we could not determine if the restlessness in the box means pre-hatch activity or an actual hatch. I know. A non-answer.
And we need more than guesswork right now. The weather forecast predicts rain through Thursday, which really hampers visibility but we’ll go back as often as we can. We’re invited to NY for Mother’s Day, but our plans are on hold, hoping to see Diamond’s Mother’s Day!
Vicki
Posted on May 7, 2012 3:27 pm
May 07, 2012 - Toronto - Sheraton Centre
Jan Chudy Reports:
Watching the web cam from France I managed to snap this photo at almost 3 p.m. Toronto time. What a lovely family shot
Posted on May 7, 2012 3:04 pm
May 07, 2012 - Toronto - King Street
Tracy Simpson Reports:
While in the CPF head office I had opened the King Street camera to check in on Erin and Windwhistler as we know that there has been a hatch but Erin has yet to give us a really good look at the young. I opened the camera up to a feeding of the young ones and for a brief moment, Erin left to remove the leftover food and gave me an awesome look at their newest family members. There are at least three chicks in this picture and these three represent Windwhistler’s 38th, 39th and 40th offspring produced in his 14 years of life. A huge accomplishment and contribution to the recovery of his species!! Congratulations to all!!
Posted on May 7, 2012 11:13 am
May 07, 2012 - Hamilton - Sheraton Hotel
Frank Butson Reports:
May 4th chick number one showed signs of hatching at The Hamilton Sheraton Hotel. A broken egg shell was the evidence. On May 5th, 2 more chicks broke on through to the other side as they hatched within hours of each other. Congratulations to the Hamilton folks and of course Madame X and Surge. Keep checking for news about the 4th egg!
Posted on May 7, 2012 6:36 am
May 04, 2012 - London - TD Tower
Tracy Simpson Reports:
Frank and I enjoyed a wonderful day in London yesterday sharing information on the history and happenings of the London nest site with members of the community. During the past two days we have met hundreds of inquizitive folks and we were overjoyed at the interest that everyone showed.
We set up at the site at around noon and immediately got views of the female on the edge of the nest tray. In the scope I could clearly see that her recovery band was black over red with a 2 on the top that was rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise and the lower letter is an X. The band was covered with a small amount of debris on the lower letter and so we will be back on May 10th to reconfirm but I can say with very little doubt that the resident female is Thunder, hatched in 2005 in Syracuse, New York. Back in 2006, Thunder was spending time in Kitchener, Ontario with a Canadian male named Dundas who was famous for surviving to hunt and breed while missing one leg. The last sighting of her was in December of 2006 and Kitchener to London is a coffee run for a peregrine. The London territory was taken over by a new female in 2007, right around the time that sightings of her and Dundas stopped and by a female with the same band configuration of black over red so it was likely Thunder since that time.
It is very exciting to have found Thunder here in London and as the daughter of the famous Fancy and Groucho in Syracuse, its all the sweeter a story. We still need to reconfirm the “X” on the bottom of the band but we are incredibly confident of it being Thunder.
The day continued with Dougal leaving the antenna on the Dundas tower at around 1:15pm and returning shortly with a snack for Thunder who was out of our sights in the nest tray. Dougal returned to the antenna while the female took the gift of food up to the TD sign where she consumed some of it and stashed the rest. Just before 2:00pm there was a shift change between the adults and the male took over the duties of caring for whatever they had in the tray. At 3:00pm, an American Kestrel got scared out of its wits when the male left the tray in hot pursuit! By 3:50pm an adult Bald eagle was making lazy circles close to the nest under the watchful eye of the male as the female had resumed her tray duties. After all of this excitement, it was time for me to head up to meet Domenic Ripepi of the Sifton Property Management Group who takes care of 1 London Place. The meet wasn’t meant to be but his administrative assistant, Linda Machuk, contacted him for me and graciously granted me access to a higher elevation to see just what they were working on in the nest tray. As reported earlier, by the end of my time in the suite I was 100% sure that at least one egg was being incubated in the nest tray.
Back down on Wellington St., the excitement continued when a Turkey vulture soared through past the nest tray which rousted both adults. Dougal took one good stoop at it and made contact with the vulture and Thunder came in right behind him. The vulture made a hasty retreat while the adults returned to the ledge. The female then took off, cycled around the building and then landed on the southwest corner loudly whining. Dougal came out of the east and flew in for mating!! More eggs in the making!! The female then returned to incubation duties while Dougal returned to his antenna perch on the Dundas tower.
I can’t say enough how many amazing people we have had the pleasure of meeting over the last two days. It was most pleasing to see the interest of the younger generation and hear their own stories of the falcons of London. A most important thank you to Domenic Ripepi and Linda Machuk of Sifton Property Management Group for access to elevations that allowed for the confirmation of at least one egg. I will be back in London again next week for an afternoon of falcon watching and community engagement; something I love to do!! I will also be reconfirming the identity the female as Thunder so come out and join us at the Peregrine Perch ( park bench on the west side of Wellington, look for the scope!! ) on May 10th!!
Posted on May 7, 2012 12:59 am
May 06, 2012 - Toronto - King Street
Linda Woods Reports:
Great night time images coming from the new King St. camera.
Many thanks to Dundee Properties for making this possible.
Posted on May 6, 2012 10:18 pm
May 06, 2012 - Toronto - King Street
Linda Woods Reports:
Evening image of mama and her chicks. Taken from webcam,
Sunday May 6th 7:30 p.m.
Posted on May 6, 2012 7:38 pm
May 05, 2012 - Niagara Falls
CPF Postmaster Reports:
Saturday May 4th - 2012
More pix from this morning showing parent pefa jittery, moving around a lot, not like the usual static position seen here. Hopeful we will get lucky with Sundays visit, and get more evidence.
Photos by Roger.
Vicki
Posted on May 6, 2012 7:13 pm
May 05, 2012 - Burlington - Lift Bridge
Mark Nash Reports:
Saturday May 5th - 2012
It was still a windy rather cool day despite the blue skies and sunny conditions and the adult female was not giving much up as I peeked through the peep holes of the nest box this afternoon.
She was tightly down in brooding mode and doing a great job covering her new family members.
I was able to confirm at least two hatchlings, with a possible third hatchling. Although all I was able to see two tiny little white fluffy butts!
Sadly, I was unable to get any sort of full view of the hatchlings, so it was impossible to age them. As such we will have to take our best guess of their age based on our observations of the resident adults behaviour as it relates to their activity in and around the nest box.
Long before we had cameras installed on any of the nest ledges, it was (ans still is) very easy to identify the first day of a hatch based on the close daily monitoring that we do on each of the active nest sites.
As in this case, it is believed that the first hatch happened on or about April 30th or May 1st.
Until I can get an physical eyeball or a photo of all of the hatchlings together, there will be no way to positively determine their exact size, thus identify the biggest, (that will at this age), allow me to identify the oldest and first hatched. I can then properly age the oldest / first hatched and come up with an exact hatch date.
Stay tuned…………
Posted on May 6, 2012 7:11 pm
May 06, 2012 - Burlington - Lift Bridge
Sue McCreadie Reports:
Bill and I spent several hours at the Lift Bridge today. What a beautiful day to be out and enjoying Spring. Still no little white heads visible either from the parking lot or from down the road. If there has been a hatch, we should be able to count heads sometime this week, I hope. An interesting thing that Mackenzie has figured out is how to shop in the bridge. We witnessed him shopping in the holes on the Bridge. He would go inside a hole and the next thing you knew, he would bring out a squab. He ate some of it and then delivered the rest to the nest box. An easy day of hunting for him.
Posted on May 6, 2012 6:58 pm
