BREAKING NEWS!! Hunter Has a Girlfriend at Mount Sinai!!!
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!
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