Mississauga North Territory Holds a Falcon Once More!
May 04, 2013 - International, National and Local News
Tracy Simpson Reports:
Thanks to the awesome spotting of Rob, one of our amazing volunteers, we know that we indeed have a falcon back at the Mississauga North location after a lengthy void in the area. For the past week, Rob has been seeing a falcon on the west side of 5800 Hurontario St. as well as the Well Fargo sign on Standish Court. He’s been able to get some great photos of this bird confirming her presence and so Bruce and I went out last evening to see if we could find her. We started off at 5800 Hurontario and scanned all buildings in the area with no luck. We parked and walked up Avebury Rd towards the Wells Fargo building, stopping and scanning along the way. When we were almost at Standish Court, Bruce looked up and scanned the two massive cranes that were currently resting for the weekend and found a falcon roosting on top of one of them. This bird could easily be seen with the naked eye and we both agreed that this was a female. The scope view confirmed that this female was a juvenile/ subadult.
It has become quite clear through the investigations and field work of all of our volunteers this season (you are all amazing by the way!) that a couple of young birds that hatched last year may not have migrated south over the winter. They opted to stay in Ontario and now are creating havoc as the resident adults at each of these sites visited treat them as less threatening than a challenging adult intruder but by the same token don’t want them around. In most cases, they are being escorted out only to boomerang back an hour later. At two sites now they have been addressed with much more serious intent on the part of the resident adults and these young ones stand to get hurt if they don’t cut it out.
Bruce and I decided to make camp and hang in to find out if this one was banded. So far we have photographic evidence of one of the juv / subadult birds that has been witnessed disrupting at nest sites and she is banded with a USFW on her left leg bearing red tape. Time to find out who this girl was. Is it her? We set up the scopes and I have to tell you, this bird could easily have passed for a small Red Tail given how dark she is. She is barred right up to her chin and really heavily streaked. As she sat on the crane, she was roosting on her left leg and occasionally stretched out her right one which we both confirmed carries a silver USFW. Now on to the left leg. Do you think she would show us the jewelry???? No!!! Each time it looked as though she was going to reveal, she faked us out. She stayed on top of the crane until almost dusk when she took off on a mission to the west. We could see her stooping and attacking something but it was off in the distance and blocked partial by buildings. A few minutes later, she flew past us to the southeast and out of view behind the Purolator building. I headed over for a look and there she was on 5800 Hurontario St. asleep for the night.
Well, great catch Rob and excellent work by Bruce to spot her! We will stay on this as best as we can to try and get an ID on the bird. This will certainly help track her activities should she continue to stick her beak in other birds business! Considering that she now sits in between two active territories, we want to stay on top of this situation as it develops.
Pictures soon to follow.
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