June 07, 2015 - Toronto - Rogers Centre
Linda Woods Reports:
Spent some time in the cheap seats for today’s game, on a bench outside the stadium.
35,000 minus one, in attendance for today’s game against Houston. Jays WIN.
All three juveniles doing well. Adults flying food past the nest with little reaction from the young.
Two feedings during my visit with the last one at 2pm. All three were fed at this time. Not a lot of pre fledge flapping today. Lots of vocalization from one of the girls when food arrives to the nest area. Gulls can be very aggressive at this site, chasing the adults when food was being delivered.
A quiet day for the most part.
Posted on June 7, 2015 6:57 pm
June 06, 2015 - Toronto - Rogers Centre
Mark Nash Reports:
Saturday June 6th - 2015
A big thank you to Linda Woods who was able to get down to the Toronto Rogers Center again this afternoon and was able to positively confirm that three hatchlings have in fact been produced at the Toronto Rogers Centre this season!
As we had suspected as a result of seeing only one adult at any given time over the past month, (and seeing both the adult male and adult female on sight), along with shift changes having been observed taking place from the original ledge that the resident peregrines nested on two years ago (south east ledge), we knew that they were involved in full time incubation activities, BUT we can now confirm that the pair have in fact been successful again this year having produced at least three young!
Based on Linda’s observations, she seeing two larger juveniles and one smaller, (believed to be two females and one male).
Now the not so good news,,, in that they are well advanced in their age, with the two larger juveniles almost fully feathered with only a very little white down. The third much smaller (and younger) juvenile still has 10% down and is likely three to five days away from fledging.
The other two juveniles are only days away from taking their first flights!!! Yikes!!!
Sadly, we didn’t get the new wireless camera in time this year to be able to get it down to the Rogers Center to do a ledge survey, but baring in mind, each of the ledges have a very deep drainage trough that runs down the center of the entire length of the ledge, and there would have been no way that we could have gotten the camera back into the depth of the ledge to see anything down into the trough itself.
It as quite apparent after spending some time with the roofers last year on their swing stage on the west side while installing the new nest tray for the resident adults that only an advanced much older hatchling could actually make it out of the drainage trough up to the ledge where they could actually be seen.
While the new wireless camera has proved to be a very useful and valuable asset for us to do high altitude ledge surveys, remember that its still only attached to a very flexible cable that must be lowered down to the ledge from the upper roof areas, and once there, it can only rest (if we’re lucky) on the outer lip of the ledge. Because the cable is flush to the outer structure wall, we have no way of getting the camera further into the ledge, (let alone of angling it to look “down” into something like this drainage trough), and as such it has its limitations if there is a lower elevation back within the ledge itself.
In any case, it appears that we will have birds fledging from the Rogers Centre within the next 2 to 5 days!!!
The photos attached were taken of the same ledge on the west side. You can see the deep drainage trough that runs along the inside length of the ledge. All of the ledges on both the west and east side are carbon copies of one another.
Looking for any and all support at this site to help out with a fledge watch! As usual, we’re typically over stressed for manpower and resources at this time of year to cover all of the on-going fledge watches, and this one has just come at us from left field - (no pun intended).
Help us help your peregrines!
Posted on June 6, 2015 10:32 pm
May 29, 2015 - International, National and Local News
Mark Nash Reports:
Friday May 29th - 2015
Beachville Carmeuse Lime and Stone Quarries
Again, sorry for the lack of updates, but it has already been a very busy season and we are always stressed for resources and manpower at the best of times, and this time of year has us doing 14 plus hour days with or field activities and on-going banding events. Please remember that we are limited and subject to available funding and resources at hand, as we are not government funded and depend on contributions and donations along with allot of volunteer support availability to do many of the things we are involved in throughout the year.
Having being able to combine this visit with the London City Centre site visit, I was finally able to get back down to the Beachville nest site and the Carmeuse Lime and Stone Quarry to get an update on their resident peregrines. A big thank you to Lucie who also met me down there to do a pre-site inspection and gather some observations while I was meeting with the folks at the Quarry administrative offices.
With the support of the Regional Environmental manager and support staff at the Carmeuse Quarries, we were able to conduct our investigation and quickly found both of the resident peregrines on one of the large towers. During out site visit, both adult peregrines were quite aggressive and protective while we were at elevation around the suspected nesting cavity. Upon our initial arrival, the adult female was observed roosting on the upper ledge of the sister building with a large kill, and was in the middle of eating.
The adult male alerted to her screams, quickly appeared in our view and they both joined in their efforts to encourage us to leave!!
After we left our elevated observation position with the Quarry staff, the resident adult female peregrine quickly returned back to the covered nest location and disappeared from our view, where she spend the balance of the day light hours concealed and out of our view. She never appeared back in our view. The resident adult male landed and roosted on a spot of the adjacent building at elevation with a direct line of site into the nest cavity where his female mate had disappeared into hours ago.
At no time did we see another shift change and no food ever when into the nest cavity during the balance of our observation period, so we can be reasonably assured that there are no hatchlings being fed at this point.
It was quite obvious after Lucie and I departed the site much later in the evening around 9pm, based on our 8 plus hours of observations that the pair are currently involved in full time incubation of an undisclosed amount of eggs.
We will be back within the next two weeks to do a another check on the pairs activities.
A big thank you to Lucie for her support and for some of her attached photos!
Stay tuned……….
Posted on May 31, 2015 2:41 pm
May 27, 2015 - International, National and Local News
Mark Nash Reports:
May 27th - 2015
We are delighted to confirm that we have been able to secure a date for the OPG Pickering banding! While there are still allot of details to be ironed out, we can confirm that June 15th will be the banding date.
For the obvious reasons, this banding will be closed to the public due to security reasons and restricted access, but we will although have lots of photos and updated news of the banding and updated news of the young hatchlings.
For the past two seasons, the Canadian Peregrine Foundation has been working very closely and in partnership with the great folks at the OPG Pickering facility while dealing with their resident nesting peregrines and we have some very exciting news and great stories to tell with regards to the history and happenings of their nesting peregrines, in addition to some of the great folks that have been working tirelessly behind the scenes to both accommodate, protect and support their resident nesting peregrines!
We are delighted to report that their resident peregrines have successfully hatched and produced three baby peregrine hatchlings this season and we’re all looking very forward to seeing them up close at the banding.
Stay tuned for lots of great stuff to follow ………………….
Stay tuned……..
Posted on May 28, 2015 11:24 pm
April 16, 2015 - International, National and Local News
Marion Nash Reports:
It would be very nice if a peregrine pair decided to set up housekeeping on one of our downtown buildings. At present our sightings seem generally limited to brief glimpses in the outlying areas, such as this one blasting over the beach at Boundary Bay south of Vancouver
The closest I have come in the “urban” area was this one, which appeared briefly atop a large grain terminal at the east end of Vancouver harbour (.. a site normally dominated at that time by a gyrfalcon that has been showing up each winter from the north):
Cheers,
Perry Edwards
North Vancouver
Posted on April 16, 2015 7:45 pm
March 05, 2015 - International, National and Local News
CPF Postmaster Reports:
March 5th - 2015
A big thank you to Hugh Sturdy for sending in his great shot of a very confused young Red-tailed hawk, after trying repeatedly trying to chase off the big bad Great horned owl that was roosting on a balcony, and failing to impress the owl! 
Hello/To Whom It May Concern - Peregrine Foundation
I live down town in a complex of buildings called City Park at Church and Alexander (Near Loblaws Maple Leaf Gardens) . Over the past few weeks I’ve observed a pair of what I believe to be falcons, swooping down and flying around the buildings here. A few times one has landed on the railing of a neighbouring building. They are incredible to watch as they fly around the area.
I have attached a photo I took recently (and posted to The Weather Network web site) It’s a funny shot because there is a fake owl on the railing to scare away pigeons and this falcon is sitting just a couple feet away from it staring at it. I also took video of one flying past.
I just thought maybe you might like to know about this pair in case you had not been aware.
Thank you.
Kind regards,
Hugh Sturdy
Toronto
Posted on March 6, 2015 8:10 pm
January 18, 2015 - International, National and Local News
CPF Postmaster Reports:
January 18th - 2015
A big thank you to Sam from St. Catharines for sending in some photos that he snapped on his way to work. While we can’t confirm who the peregrine is at this point, it is obvious that bird in his photo is in fact a peregrine falcon!
Sam writes:
I saw a peregrine falcon on my way to the bus this morning. On MacTurnbull Drive in St. Catharines, Ontario.
Posted on January 29, 2015 6:39 pm
January 09, 2015 - International, National and Local News
CPF Postmaster Reports:
Jan. 8th - 2014
Thanks to John Little for sending in his recent photo of a feathered visitor that ended up in is backyard to dine. A good shot of a Sharpie, roosting after obviously dining on a fresh meal.
At this time of year, the CPF usually gets hundreds of phone calls and e-mail over the winter months telling us that they have another one of our peregrines in their back yard feeding on all of their winter birds that are utilizing their outdoor bird feeders. If this was actually the case, we would have thousands of urban peregrines around,,, (and that of course is absolutely not the case). At this time of year, most all of the Canada’s wild - (non-urban peregrines) are far to the south on their wintering grounds, with only the resident territorial urban adults braving the cold better weather. And even then, our urban adult peregrines don’t hang around backyards or hunt at these low altitudes below the tree canopies.
In this case, John Little identified his feathered visitor bang-on, as an adult Sharpe-shinned hawk - (which is usually the case with 99.99 % of all of the raptors that are incorrectly identified in peoples back yards at this time of the year, especially here in our northern hemispheres).
We do see a few Coopers hawks, a few Rough-legged and Broad-winged hawks, lots of Sharpies and Red-tails and even the odd Goshawk is being photographed and hanging around. Good gracious, if you could fly freely south to warmer weather with an abundance of free food, why on earth would you stay here in these freezing temps???,, but some do stay and tough it out as evident of the hundreds of photographs that are sent into us each year.
Photographer - John Little
January 2015, Meridian, Idaho USA
Posted on January 9, 2015 5:19 am
January 05, 2015 - International, National and Local News
Mark Nash Reports:
Jan 5th - 2015
Just a quick peregrine update. While on a routine trip out to the bank today,, our attention was once again directed to the underside of the huge water storage tank at Warden and Eglinton here in Scarborough with the familiar black object on the underside of the water storage tank. After a closer inspection, it was clearly identified as a adult peregrine roosting on one of the large support beams underneath of the water tank. Sadly, without a scope or camera on board, and with only my binoculars, I was easily able to identify it as a an adult peregrine, was unable to get a band identification of the mystery falcon due to the distances from our ground position and the height of the roosting peregrine.
The good news, is that it is really easy to see a dark coloured peregrine roosting on any part of the water tank due to its white colour that the water storage tank has been painted, so if you are travelling on Eglinton Ave near Warden Ave, you can easily spot the roosting peregrine when its there.
Looks like I will have to get the camera back in the car so the next time I will be better prepared and will try and get a photo in an effort to identify our mystery peregrine! We would encourage all to visit when you have a chance and maybe you can get an ID on this mystery peregrine. Your observation reports and photos are most welcomed!
Stay tuned…………..
Posted on January 6, 2015 5:31 pm
December 30, 2014 - Toronto - Rogers Centre
Mark Nash Reports:
December 30th - 2014
Just a quickly update on the roofing activity at the Rogers Centre. After four plus months of waterproofing work, the work had finally been completed and the new CPF nest tray has finally been successfully installed. Looking really good in fact! A short visit for me this morning that lasted only a couple of hours on site, I can honestly say that the install went without a catch and its looking really good! Both resident adults have been active and very much around watching the roof crew finish up the work on their nest ledge.
The green barrier mesh that was installed over top of the nest ledge worked fantastic in protecting the workmen while they were working on this elevation over the past month. While it keep the peregrines out of the nest ledge and protected the workmen, the resident peregrines were never the less observed on many of the other west elevations “supervising” the roofers activities throughout the entire four month roofing project.
The new marine poly-composite materials that we are now utilizing to build all of the new nest trays and nest boxes has really made things much easier for us in the terms of longevity and maintenance free in comparison to the older pressure treated building materials that we once used to manufacture these same nest trays and nest boxes. Admittedly, the new marine poly-composite materials are much heavier and far more expensive in comparison to the same sized wood products, they come pre-coloured, UV and water resistant, and have 25 plus year guarantees that are virtually maintenance free!! No more rotting, re-staining, or fading!! While these new materials are somewhat difficult to fasten together as they must be predrilled and you have to use special fasteners, once completed, they are incredibly solid and long lasting!
The elevated nest tray should also keep the peregrines nesting activities off the new waterproofing membrane and out off the water soaked rain gutter, ensuring a dry, safe nesting place, and will protect the new roof membrane from being scrapped and damaged by the adult peregrines.
The new Rogers nest tray is a typical example of the new style nest trays that the CPF is now building and installing, in addition to replacing most all of the original nest trays and nest boxes as money becomes available to us to replace the aging old nest boxes and nest trays at many of the other existing nest sites. Some of our first nest boxes and nest trays have been in use since we installed them back in 1997!!
Many of these original nest trays and nest boxes are in desperate need of being replaced, as they have succumb to wood rot, as they have become waterlogged and fading bad.
In any case, we are very eager to see how quickly the resident peregrine pair will take onto the new nest tray.
Stay tuned……….
Posted on January 5, 2015 8:50 pm
