April 07, 2014 - Etobicoke - William Osler
Tracy Simpson Reports:
Today I stopped in at the William Osler nest site with Bryan, a student conducting his two week placement with us, to check in on Hurricane and Chessie. Both adults were in the tower and after a few minutes Hurricane took off and silently flew to the nest tray behind the eastern H sign. He disappeared into the tray and so Bryan and I met up with Ross for a quick look at the nest tray monitor. When we arrived upstairs Hurricane had already left and there was no eggs in the tray as of yet. Back outside we found both Chessie and Hurricane on the northern H roosting and so we sat down for a while to watch. Hurricane took off after about 10 minutes and put on quite a flight display in response to Chessie’s invitation to breed. They mated after which Hurricane went straight to the nest tray to rearrange things. Chessie flew off and attempted a flight up to the northwest corner of the building but needed a circle out to gain some elevation for the landing. No wonder given the big crop and puffed out abdomen that she is sporting!! We will hopefully have news of the first egg any day now as she looks like she is more than ready!
Posted on April 7, 2014 11:35 pm
April 07, 2014 - Toronto - Canada Square Building - Yonge and Eglinton
Bruce Massey Reports:
Great news to report this evening. I stopped in at Canada Square today to check in on the resident adults and found Haven in the west ledge, same ledge as last year, laying down. Stormin was on the top of the wall above the nest and occasionally vocalizing to her. For a brief moment she stood up and revealed the first egg that was beneath her. Congratulations Canada Square on your first egg!!
Posted on April 7, 2014 11:21 pm
April 07, 2014 - Toronto - Sheraton Centre
Kathy Reports:
Thank you to SGB over at BCAW for capturing this photo of the 3 eggs!!!
Posted on April 7, 2014 4:58 pm
April 07, 2014 - Toronto - King Street
Linda Woods Reports:
I had been watching the web cam late last night with Erin standing next to the nest bowl and anticipating she may lay the egg on camera. This morning, egg # 2 !
Posted on April 7, 2014 9:12 am
April 07, 2014 - Toronto - Mount Sinai Hospital
Tracy Simpson Reports:
Last weekend Linda, Bruce and I followed up on an observation made by Linda that something was different at the Mount Sinai nest site. A male was hanging around being quite visible and a second bird had made a brief appearance. On March 30th, the three of us gathered down at University and Gerrard for a day of observations and we weren’t to be disappointed. It was then that we confirmed the presence of a second bird, not a passerby, staying within the territory and working things out with the male in the area who we had yet to confirm as Hunter. As the light was fading that Sunday, we agreed that this warranted further investigation and yesterday we set up for a full day of watching.
We found the male on the east side of Mount Sinai in the second ledge from the north and the female in the third. Not only is she easy to distinguish based on her size but also her constant vocalizations at the male. There were several flights during the morning and early afternoon and each time the male took flight, she would follow along behind him wherever he went. The male was prone to land and roost on places that Hunter had always used in the past leading us to believe that it may still be him, but who was she?
It wasn’t until midday that we really got a period of time with them both hanging around Mount Sinai for a good look at them. The male flew into the north ledge of the hospital and that started quite a ruckus. He had food. He had retrieved a cache from that ledge and flew around to the east side of Mount Sinai to a nook just below their ledge of interest for potential nesting. The female came bombing in screaming her head off and picked his pocket. She now had herself a pigeon and was eating away while he flew up to the ledge above for a nap seeing as she was now occupied. It was then that we were able to get a good look at her and she is absolutely banded… …backwards. Her USFW is on her left leg and her Canadian recovery band on her right. We were then able to get a look at the recovery band briefly and saw that the top letter is an X and of the double digit on the bottom we could clearly see it started with a 9. There is only one bird with this band configuration and combination making her ID fairly easy. We can say with 99% certainty that this is Seven, hatched at the Niagara Gorge nest site in 2012 to Diamond and Onyx. Some of you will remember that last year in April she busied herself stirring up trouble at the ADM Mills nest site in Port Colbourne and was photographed intruding upon the local pair. It seems that she is now settled at the Mount Sinai Hospital with a male.
After eating she sought him out again and started to vocalize and pester once more. There were several flights by the pair and she finally settled herself in the second ledge on the east side where we witnessed him flying in and and mating with her. This settled her down for a while and the two napped and preened on the east side for the rest of the afternoon. Things became active again just after 5pm when the pair set out on a hunt. Unlucky in their attempts, Seven flew up to the Hakim Optical building where she found a cache on the northwest corner and the male retrieved his own stash from the IA building. He flew out and up to the top corner in the sun to eat and it was then that we clearly could see the Black over Green H/D recovery band confirming Hunter as the resident male hatched in 2000 at the Rhodes Office Tower in Ohio. Seven joined him on the building where they mated a second time after which he went off to the east ledges of Mount Sinai for a nap and she flew up to the Intact sign to preen.
This is excellent news for the Mount Sinai nest site! We will have to wait and see what this means for the nesting season and whether they achieve success in hatching young. Most certainly this territory will now be on our watch list and we will keep you updated on their progress. I want to thank Bruce and Linda for a great day of discovery and look forward to the season to come with these two awesome birds.
Pictures will follow later today after a I have had a chance to tidy them up!
Posted on April 7, 2014 8:58 am
April 07, 2014 - International, National and Local News
Tracy Simpson Reports:
Yesterday Bruce and I went out to the ICICI nest site at Don Mills and Eglinton for a check in on the progress being made by Jenna and Chester towards hatching young. When we arrived, we checked in with security first and then made our way out to the parking lot. After a quick scan we located Chester right away on the Foresters sign where he was roosting on the R; Jenna was not in sight. We set up to watch Chester and see where he was going to go when he moved. He came off of the sign heading straight for us and when he got over the parking lot he flew past the east side of 250 Ferrand and then circled back landing on the DeBeers sign. There he sat preening for about 15 minutes before he was off heading back to the Foresters building. He landed in the O and I must say retrieved a substantial cache from the back of the letter. It looked more gull sized than anything and he began to chow down. After eating his fill he flew back over to the DeBeers building and right up into the east ledge. He disappeared into the ledge being very vocal and about 1 minute later, he was out and on the DeBeers sign once again where we were able to confirm his band number. All of Chester’s attention was focused on the DeBeers building at 250 Ferrand, sister building to ICICI, and so we kept our eyes glued to his every move. He stayed on the sign a little longer this time before he was in the air and back over to the east ledge of DeBeers. He disappeared into the back of the ledge for several minutes but this time it was Jenna, the unbanded resident female, that came out to the edge of the ledge and took flight. She didn’t go very far, just around the corner to the sign, where she took up position showing off her very full crop. I think Chester must have muscled her out of there insisting that it was his turn to incubate.
The great news is that Chester and Jenna are in full time incubation. The interesting news is that the have decided to switch it up and change buildings. They are on the exact same ledge as last year but instead on the sister building to ICICI. We aren’t sure when they went down on the eggs full time but we believe that given recent observations that they may in fact be a good week into it.
Pictures to follow.
Posted on April 7, 2014 8:12 am
April 06, 2014 - Toronto - Don Mills
Kathy Reports:
Thank you to mwplay over at BCAW for alerting us to Quest laying egg number 3 which arrived at 6:50 pm tonight!
Posted on April 6, 2014 7:03 pm
April 06, 2014 - Windsor - Ambassador Bridge
Dennis Patrick Reports:
Good morning,
Stopped at the bridge this morning around 8:45 and Voltaire was down in the nest tray. After about 10 minutes, she moved to the edge of the tray and Freddie landed on the western uppermost ledge with a fresh kill. He cleaned the carcass and brought it in next to the nest tray. Voltaire flew out and has been perched on the pipe under the bridge ever since. Freddie stayed next to the nest for a few minutes and then flew to Voltaire and copulated. He returned to the nest and sat facing into the nest for about 10 minutes before returning to Voltaire for another round of copulation. Now is on the steeple, perhaps praying for strong offspring.
After another 10 minutes or so on the steeple, Freddie flew into the nest and sat in the tray. He was clucking a lot and Voltaire remained on the pipe. Shortly after, he flew around and returned to Voltaire for another pairing and then returned to the steeple.
Freddie flew off towards the river and Voltaire has been perched on the pipe in the sunshine. She has been facing me for a while and while I don’t know Peregrine reproductive anatomy, it sure looks like there is a couple of egg shape protuberances at the top of her breast area. Can’t seem to find anything online about where the eggs emerge from but sure looks like egg formations there.
Voltaire returned to the nest for a while again and Freddie came back with more food. He’s been a very busy bird this morning.
It’s 11:30 now and I’m going to get warmed up and on with the day.
Cheers,
Marilyn
Posted on April 6, 2014 6:55 pm
April 05, 2014 - Mississauga - Executive Centre
Linda Woods Reports:
Precious little one is being well cared for.
Posted on April 5, 2014 7:57 pm
!!!
April 05, 2014 - Windsor - Ambassador Bridge
Dennis Patrick Reports:
Saturday morning at 8:45 am from volunteer Marilyn: Forwarding some exciting news from Paul and Karen! I’m at the bridge now and Voltaire is on the nest box. No sign of Freddie. We should have chicks in about a month!
Friday evening around 8:30 pm from volunteers Paul and Karen: Paul just called from the Ambassador Bridge to say that Voltaire is
sitting in the nest. He was very excited.
Soon the fun will begin in Windsor!
Posted on April 5, 2014 1:04 pm
