With the most incredible thanks to Marco, Peter, Guarda security and the Colliers team the MEC camera is back online and the female has two eggs in the bowl. I am certain that one was laid yesterday giving us a good timeline for hatching. Thanks to all at MEC for your efforts!
I was out at MEC today continuing to work on bringing the camera image, which is functioning perfectly, to the website. It would seem that the issue is within the building itself and I will have the help of MEC staff tomorrow to try and rectify it. During the building upgrades that have now made the MEC complex a fabulous example of sustainable workplaces, it would appear the camera and router are not connecting. Fingers crossed we get it fixed tomorrow.
The bigger and most fabulous news is that it appears as have our first egg confirmed in southern Ontario. The egg was just partially visible at the top edge of the camera image as the female has decided to lay against the north edge of the box. There may be a second egg beside it but it really is impossible to tell right now. I was able to catch the pair copulating and we are not in full time incubation yet. The male was positively identified as the unbanded male that has been there for many seasons and the females identity has yet to be confirmed. The good news is that as the female turns the eggs, given where she has laid them, she will have to roll them towards the centre of the box giving us a full view when they hatch. Congratulations to MEC on your first egg!!
Tuesday March 17th - 2015
A big thank you to Terry Cooke for sending in her snapshot of the love birds at the Toronto Sheraton nest ledge from this morning. There is obviously some serious discussions going on here!
Stay tuned……….
March 16th-2015
Well, it would appear that its change-over time at many of the southern Ontario urban nest sites, weather the causes are due to injuries, deaths and / or territorial disputes or simply hostile take-overs,,, (among the most recent causes),,, there are a number of other new boys and girls in town taking over some of the existing occupied territories.
Spring is in the air!!!!
Most recently, as a result of the ongoing territorial disputes and squabbling at the Hamilton Sheraton nest site, (and with the injury and replacement of Surge), we quickly noticed that the long standing resident adult female - (Madam X,,, a.k.a. Run-Around-Sue) had disappeared from the Hamilton Sheraton nest site and been replaced with a new adult female dawning a very unique Green over Black leg band configuration!!
What makes this particularly interesting, is the fact that the Green over Black leg band that has been observed being on this new Sheraton female is actually upside-down! The Black should be on the top and the Green should be on the bottom. The band was obviously put on the bird at banding upside down. This is of course very important when it come to the birds identification and origin.
The Black over Green aluminum bands were issued to the Michigan State Wildlife authorities by the Federal United States Fish and Wildlife in the USA along with a complete serious of consecutively numbered Black over Green aluminium leg bands,, and this particular alpha-numeric sequence falls in sequence with the other bands both issued and used in Mich. state in 2010.
This being confirmed by our friends at the MDNR in Michigan USA, the leg band number is Black *P over Green *E. As such, this band number is recorded to have been placed on a 2010 produced female banded peregrine that was both produced and banded in Grand Haven, Michigan USA.
Her name is Lily!
I am to understand after talking with the CPF head office this afternoon, that Tracy Simpson has a far more detailed report to post with regards to her site observations of the events and timelines.
Stay tuned……………….
Monday March 16th - 2015
A big thank you to Olga for sending in her snap shot of Lucky and O’Connor taken this afternoon via the live nest web cam from the Bloor & Islington nest in Etobicoke site where “Lucky” may just get lucky 
It would appear that the previous resident adult male “Jack” has been replaced with the new kid on the block,, a young peregrine named “Lucky - banded Black Y over 72″ who was produced at the Don Mills & Eglinton nest site in 2013
We knew that some day, Jack’s absence would cost him this nest site, (and although Jacks whereabouts is actually not known), proof is in the photograph. Lucky is currently courting O’Connor, and it would appear that she has been very welcoming indeed!
Stay tuned…………..
Monday March 16th - 2015
A big thank you to Olga for sending in her snap shot of Lucky and O’Connor taken this afternoon via the live nest web cam from the Bloor & Islington nest site where “Lucky” may just get lucky
It would appear that the previous resident adult male “Jack” has been replaced with a the new kid on the block,, a young peregrine named “Lucky - banded Black Y over 72″ who was produced at the Don Mills & Eglinton nest site in 2013 - http://www.peregrine-foundation.ca/w/c/sightings/toronto-don-mills-and-eglinton
We knew that some day, Jack’s absence would cost him this nest site, (and although Jacks whereabouts is actually not known), proof is in the photograph. Lucky is currently courting O’Connor, and it would appear that she has been very welcoming indeed!
Stay tuned…………..
Friday March 13th - 2015
A quickly update on the MEC nest site and happenings. Sadly, we have not been able to get the live MEC nest camera issue fixed 
Despite all of Tracy’s efforts (with allot of help from the MEC engineering staff), we have not as yet been successful in fixing the live web cam problems.
That being said, the colour nest box camera is in fact working just fine and has been throughout (at least in-part), as it is still producing a live real-time colour streaming image to the TV monitor inside the building. Throughout the afternoon while Tracy was on site, she watched the resident grins come in and out of the nest box. No eggs as yet.
We have again contacted the CPF webmaster to see if there is something that he can do for us to fix the problem
Stay tuned…………
This morning I noticed the male had a dark band on his left leg and some other distinguishing features that were not attributed to our resident male Jack.
Tracy was kind enough to come down to the site and has just positively ID’d our new male as Lucky - who was previously seen romancing Quest until the Don Mills resident male Skye returned from migration last week. Lucky was born at the Don Mills & Eglington Amexon nest site, he is banded Black on the left leg and has blue tape on his right leg covering the USFW band.
We are attempting to determine if Jack is at his other site and will return or if this is settled. O’Connor and he have been bowing to each other so she is certainly welcoming him which may indicate a territorial battle over the weekend.
Thanks again to Paul G. for more great shots today at the bridge. Voltaire’s bands can be seen quite well in some of these photos and the male is clearly not Freddie. We will continue to look through photos from the past couple years to try and narrow down when Freddie was last seen at this nest.
Through the sharp eyes of our friends at the CPF, it was observed that the male in the recent photos from the past week is not banded. Looking back, it appears that this new male was resident at least beginning in the Spring of 2015. We have confirmed band numbers on Voltaire so she remains the resident female here. Guess we were all too busy counting fledglings last year to notice the change.
Thanks to Marion, Mark, and Tracy for you help in noticing this significant change!