!!! Beachville Quarries nest site - two eggs currently being incubated with 2 older eggs abandoned and a new resident adult female is on site!
June 30, 2015 - International, National and Local News
Mark Nash Reports:
June 30th - 2015
I apologize for the late posting, but my day ended at 3am, (with yet another unplanned 20 hour day before I could actually get home). Just as I arrived back in Toronto and walked through the door, another call came in that had me rushing back out the door to yet another peregrine site in Pickering, doing a ground search for another downed fledgling in the darkness and fog until 2:30am in the morning. While successful in our efforts, having found the young fledgling before the raccoons and other night predators did, and returning it safely to the nest ledge and its parents, I have to admit, the 20 hour days were much easier to handle when I was 30 years of age. Now at 58, some of these long days are getting much harder to handle! Finally home by 3am, I just didn’t have it in me to get on the computer to do anything, let alone to start hours of editing of all of the camera footage and photos to make them ready for posting!
In any case, back to the Beachville peregrines,,, Some of the mystery unfolds!
With a third site visit having been completed today at the Beachville quarries in an effort to positively confirm what is actually going on with their resident peregrines, we no longer have to speculate. This time with the help of a 135 foot man lift and with Andrew at the controls, who was kind enough to give us some of his time this afternoon to operate the giant 135 foot man lift, I can confirm without any doubt that the Beachville resident peregrines are in fact incubating eggs!
With the additional help of a little modern technology, the new colour Garmin wireless camera, we can confirm after reviewing some the recorded camera footage that the resident adult female is in fact involved in full time incubation with at least two eggs,,, and another two very pale sun bleached eggs on a separate section of the ledge having been abandoned altogether.
A huge thank you also goes out to Lucie who has been travelling from Toronto to the Beachville site collecting and recording observations of the pairs activities, and we can confirm via her observations that the resident adult male is dawning a Solid black leg band identification, and that it is still Joe, a 2010 produced peregrine from the Hamilton Sheraton Hotel nest site.
His new female mate is banded with a Black over Green leg band, and we are currently checking the band numbers to get an identification and history on her. Last year, as you might recall, Joe’s female companion was a 2011 Scarborough Yellow Pages produced female peregrine named Rihannon - Black banded 53 over X, but it would appear that she has now been replaced by this new Black over Green banded female. Good solid investigating Lucie!!!
This might explain the two older abandoned eggs?
Stay tuned for a more detailed report, some photos and some of the camera footage once I have organized, colour corrected and edited the camera footage……
On another note, I was lucky enough to snap a few photos myself after my man lift, of a Turkey Vulture who literally dropped in and landed on a hydro pole 10 feet directly in front of me while Lucie and I were watching the peregrines from the side of the roadway. Ok, not National Geographic photo stuff, but quite a close-up rather intimate personal visit with the Turkey Vulture!
This event happened seconds after me explaining to Lucie that I had NEVER been able to photograph a Turkey Vulture up close (nor ever seen one on the side of the road actually standing),, and that my usual experience seeing them had always been at great distances, always soaring high in the sky, but never ever close up)!
Well, did I get a surprise today!! Hello!
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