NEW NEST SITE?? Brantford Grace Anglican Church Has a territorial Pair!!
May 13, 2013 - International, National and Local News
Tracy Simpson Reports:
A huge thank you to Doug Smith for finding us and giving us some great observation reports that allowed us to do a follow-up on his report of territorial peregrine activity in Brantford Ontario. Thanks Doug, Well done!! Bruce and I arrived in Brantford at 5pm and headed straight for the church. As we drove into town, there were very few tall buildings in the area and this section of Brantford is a mix of commercial main street strip stores and residential. The Grace church is about .5km from the Grand River and is surrounded by houses. There is a parkette across the street and we set up there. Pulling up to this church I expected maybe Kestrels and was blown away to find a female peregrine on the back side of the church. She was roosting on a lower ledge of the bell tower that is a tall square tower. After 20 minutes she took off to the east and circled back with a male in tow. The male passed her in the air and reached the tower roof first. He had food. She took the food from him and they copulated. He took off back to the east and out of view. She flew out and back to the bell tower and ate. She has a purple USFW on her left leg and has a black over red recovery band reading 32/X. Her name is Rosie and she is a 2011 hatch from the Macomb County Building in Michigan and is daughter to Nick and Hathor at that site. I got a shot of them mating and the male had a solid black recovery band on his left leg and silver USFW on the right; Canadian born. We waited to see what Rosie would do after eating and she flew off to the east after the male. We walked east into a commercial section of town and found a few more churches and buildings that we scanned. We found the male on another church closer to the river and he was soaked. He must have taken a bath in the shallow section of the river. We were able to read his band and I photographed it. It is solid black 50/X and it is Skye, banded in 2010 at Etobicoke Sun Life and is from Angel’s last brood before O’Connor took over the site. He stayed on the church in the sun drying and we took a look for Rosie but couldn’t find her. As we were running out of light, we headed down to the river where a local resident said he saw them flying and looked around. The bridge that spans the Grand River has some amazing recessed areas that could easily be used by nesting peregrines. The Grace church bell tower is the tallest thing around but they actually can’t get into the open spaces in the tower as its chicken wired from the inside to keep birds out. The only option would be the roof of the tower. I can’t say for sure if they are nesting or not but they are definately bonded and copulating. The focus of their activity appears to be the Grace church. Bruce and I will go back for a good day of recon before things get really busy and try and figure out where they intend to end up.
