!!! Eventful day - the young hatchling was safely transferred to the nest box, resident adult parents attending!
July 05, 2013 - Port Colborne - ADM Mill
Doug Garbutt Reports:
July 5th - 2013
Today was a huge relief for us here in Port Colborne. The only surviving young hatchling we have was successfully transferred from the narrow I-beam it was hatched on to the safety of our nest box!
The extraction and transfer was done by Mark Nash from the CPF and Anne Yagi from the MNR. It all went like clockwork as the bird was safety removed from the narrow I-beam & and transferred into the box. Special thanks to ADM management for their support and cooperation, and to Rolf Numsen for ensuring all safety measures were followed.
As to be expected, Mom & Dad were not too happy about the whole affair, (and Mark will not be on their X-Mass card list again this year), however, this will give the young peregrine hatchling a shot at survival.
Later in the evening Mom was able to locate her missing chick in the nest box and everything returned back to normal. I’m sure she was quite relieved. We know very well from the past, that if the hatchling had not been moved, it surely would have fallen to it death from the narrow I-beam and perished as did its other sibling this season. This could have easily been a repeat story when three other hatchlings several years ago fell to their death when the resident adult female was forced to nest on the I-beam due to a rouge female peregrine that had been fighting with and terrorizing our resident pair to take over the nest box.
Sadly, as you know, this year the same thing has been happening with competition from yet another rouge sub-adult female fighting with our resident pair for the nest box and territory. While we were not able to recover the body of the second young hatchling that disappeared this season, (believed also to also have fallen to its death from the narrow I-beam where our resident adult female was forced to lay and successfully hatch two of the her eggs), we have at least been able save this little one in time.
We are looking forward to about 10 days +/- from now, when they will return to band the baby hatchling.
As a foot note, remember that CPF could not transfer the young hatchlings until they reached an age when the young hatchlings are able to regulate their body temperature, (in the on-sight that it took the parents some time to finally give up their searching of the old I-beam nest location and attend to the hatchling in the nest box). The hatchling is now somewhat mobile at this age, and can now migrate around the nest box to also get in and out of the direct sunlight for shade (and visa versa for warmth) when not being brooded by the adults.
As you recall, CPF had to perform a similar action many years at our site when the resident adult female successfully hatched eggs on this same I-beam. The year prior to this, all three of the young hatchlings produced fell to their death. A nest box was manufactured by CPF and installed by us and the following year, and when the adults re-nested on the I-beam, and the hatchlings were successfully transferred to the new nest box.
All survived to successfully fledge and grew to healthy juveniles attended by their adult parents.
Up until this year, the nest box has been used each year by our resident adults.
Stay tuned for more updates……..
