June 26, 2015 - Mississauga - Holcim
CPF Postmaster Reports:
June 26th - 2015
In typical Holcim fashion, the red carpet was laid out again for all of the attendees at the Holcim banding event this afternoon, and a very good day indeed! A huge thank you to Barb and all of the staff at Holcim for making the day go so seamless.
Again, another huge thank you to John Millar, our high altitude climber that has once again donated his time and his professional services to repel down to the nest ledge to do the extraction, but was also put to work again at the nest ledge to install a new nest tray for the Holcim peregrines.
Despite the fact that the existing roof elevation have served the Holcim resident peregrines quite well, we have all been noticing less and less available nesting sub-straight materials for the peregrines as the roof has over the years been both windswept and weather stripped.
While water pooling has not yet been a problem,, we know only too well that its only a matter of time given all of the harsh weather that we have been seeing of late, in particular, all of the flooding that been going on as a result of the severe downpours we have all been experiencing.
In addition to the increased moisture, we are seeing more severe winter conditions, with higher accumulations of snow and cold damp spring temps. All of these conditions have played a roll in the decrease of our urban peregrines productions over the past five years.
In an effort to prevent a nest site failure from happening as a result of water pooling and other more sinister conditions, (some that we can actually control), Holcim provided the funding that allowed the CPF to build a new nest tray, and we took the opportunity to have John install the nest tray and pea-gravel while the little hatchling was away being banded.
As you know, access to this nest ledge is very limited and this was a golden opportunity.
While Mark Nash and John Millar were busy installing the new nest tray, (along with several hundred pounds of pea-gravel), assisted by the Holcim staff, Mark Heaton from the Ministry of Natural Resources, Marion Nash from the Canadian Peregrine Foundation and Barb Smith from Holcim completed the banding of Holcim’ s newest family member,, “Ogden” as he was named by the plant staff at banding.
Little Ogden, is the sole survivor of two young hatchlings that has been produced at the Holcim site this season, with its other sibling having disappeared several days ago before the scheduled banding event. Sadly, this is not an isolated incident this season, with several other new born hatchlings having disappeared from the nest sites.
As you know, there are many natural dangers, challenges, risks and other natural events that even our urban nesting peregrines must deal with, from other avian and mammalian predators, (Great horned owls, Black-backed Gulls and Raccoons just to mention a few), to moisture collection as a result of driving rain, high winds and a host of other parasitic creepy crawlies!
So with a new nest tray installed, and a few hundred pounds of pea-gravel to prevent any moisture collection and ensure that proper drainage will take place, John waited at the nest elevation for the little hatchling to return after banding.
Back at the banding table with Mark, Marion and Barb, the little peregrine hatchling weighed in 580 grams, clearly identified as a male, being 21 days old, and was named Ogden!
Ogden was banded with a solid Black Y over 22 with Yellow tape to clearly identify him.
Welcome Ogden!
Little Ogden was successfully banded in record time, and was returned back to his parents care without incident. It is also worth noting that both the resident adults parents were on hand to supervise (and of course object) to the entire procedure as we would have expected,, (and very pleased to confirm that both mon and dad were very much on site).
A very good event all around!
Now its off to the Canada Square nest site to do a site visit to establish a start date for the up and coming fledge watch…
Posted on June 27, 2015 3:04 pm
June 24, 2015 - Mississauga - Holcim
CPF Postmaster Reports:
June 24th - 2015
A huge thank you to Barb for sending these new photos into us, and to Armando and Stephanie for all of their efforts in getting these new photos in the first place!
While it now appear that there is only a single hatchling that has survived, its looking pretty good indeed! With the undivided attention of both attending parents, its likely to be very spoiled !! :-),,, but obviously well cared for!
Banding will take place this Friday June 26th and we should have some great photos for all.
Stay tuned…………………..
Posted on June 24, 2015 1:08 pm
June 12, 2015 - Mississauga - Holcim
CPF Postmaster Reports:
June 12th - 2015
Great news to report. We have been able to setup and confirm a banding date for the Holcim hatchlings! While this is a closed banding due to safety protocols, we will report all of the details and photos as soon as we can.
Stay tuned for banding news….
Posted on June 13, 2015 5:20 am
June 10, 2015 - Mississauga - Holcim
Mark Nash Reports:
June 10th - 2015
Hi Mark,
We finally have something to report from our site. Today June 10, 2015, we got lucky and got our timing right, thus allowing us to observe the contents of the nest.
We started off with 8 eggs on April 30th, and today we see that only 2 were successfully hatched, but that is really good considering the obstacles that Caspian had to overcome. I believe full time incubation started on May 1, 2015, and the hatching took place within the last 5 or 6 six days. We could tell that the parents were aware of something under them earlier, but could not see anything until today.
Based on this info, when do you think banding day would be?
Regards
Armando
Posted on June 10, 2015 11:11 pm
April 30, 2015 - Mississauga - Holcim
Mark Nash Reports:
April 30th - 2015
Ok, this is a record no mater how you shake it out!! (NO pun intended)!! This is NOT a photo-shop gag!
As a result of the territorial battles that resulted in the death of the long standing resident adult male at Holcim, the new sub-adult resident male on site wasn’t wasting any time in his efforts to create his own family,,, (nor is the resident adult female it would seem given the second clutch of 4 eggs that she has now laid)!!!! NOW EIGHT EGGS in total are visible in the nest!!
The first clutch of 4 eggs (seen in the photo as being the much lighter in colour, bleached out by the sun while they were not being attended to during the territorial battles and the lack of a support male to help the resident female with her full time incubation duties) still remains,,, among the newly laid (much more vibrant rusty brown coloured eggs) that the resident adult female has just recently produced. This is a second clutch of 4 eggs!!!
We highly suspect that the first clutch of 4 egg are addled, (and if they were in fact fertile in the first place), the embryo’s have likely long since died as a result of the eggs being allowed to get too cold. The unhatched chicks simply die as a result of cold and hyperthermia. It doesn’t take much of a temp drop given the small mass / size of the peregrines egg. As for the second clutch of 4 eggs, you never know, they just maybe fertile, as the new resident sub-adult male on site just maybe old enough to impregnate the female and cause fertilization!
That being said, take a close look at the photo,, (unless the resident adult female expels or consumes some of the addled eggs, making some room), you can see the daunting task ahead of the pair trying to successfully cover and incubate any of the eggs given their total mass, (and the lack of sufficient nesting sub-straight and a much deeper nesting bowl that would help contain this many eggs) is going to be very difficult indeed!
Sadly, in this case, this particular elevation at Holcim is not one that we can easily get too from the ground, to simply just add a nest tray and additional nesting sub-straight without a very large costly telescopic or crane lift type equipment. While it is true that we have installed both nest trays and nest boxes at much higher elevations over the past year at several other OPG nest sites, the very expensive lift equipment was at the time, already on site at these other locations and at hand with operators available for us to utilize them.
While the female peregrine is much larger than the male, (and in this case, she is much more experienced),, even under the existing conditions and current situation, trying to successfully contain and incubate 8 eggs will be a daunting task for her,,, (let along for the much smaller, less experienced male)!!
A huge thank you to Armando and Stephanie for the great photos and updates!! Great work indeed folks!!!
Stay tuned……………………..
Posted on May 1, 2015 2:16 pm
May 01, 2015 - Mississauga - Holcim
Tracy Simpson Reports:
Thank you so much to Stephanie and Armando for your observations at the Holcim facility of Caspian and her bid to reclutch with the new male on site. Bruce Massey and I have been going down and doing site checks from Avonhead Road as often as we can since Storm was recovered deceased not far from the site. Here is a few of the notable observations we have witnessed.
April 7th - a new male is spotted at the Holcim facility with Caspian. He is an Ontario banded male with yellow tape on his USFW and the most distinctive feature is that he is immature. He is still donning juvenile plumage as his molt into subadult phase has yet to begin. He is seen here until Saturday April 11th.
April 18th - there is a new male on site with Caspian and he is in adult plumage. He has a silver USFW band and a solid black recovery band. Caspian is more accepting of this male and is not aggressively chasing him away. Both birds are visiting the old nest box located on an east ledge in the heart of the plant. She is entering and scraping while he has yet to enter the box. Neither bird is incubating the eggs laid while Caspian was paired with Storm.
April 20th - Caspian and the new male were witnessed copulating and there has been no further sighting of the immature male. Both are seen at the old nest box and at the most current nest ledge on the south side of the tall silos.
April 25th - Bruce Massey had the opportunity to get a partial band number off of the male. The top letter is an R and there is a double digit on the bottom. The first digit is a 4. A bird is spotted at the old nest box and it is not Caspian but an immature FEMALE. She is banded but way too distant to tell color or numbers with any certainty. The new resident adult male is stooping her and aggressively chasing her. When he broke off the attacks at the nest box and flew over to rest on the current nest ledge, the immature female attempted to join him there. Caspian (confirmed by band) came out of nowhere and actively chased her. It is the last time we have seen the immature female on site. New behavior from the male included food transfers to Caspian and defense of territory. Even though they both went into the current nest ledge on the south side of the tall silos for brief periods, neither bird was incubating or out of sight for any length of time.
April 28th - Incubation behavior has begun and a new egg was confirmed by Armando (thank you so much!). I suspected that an egg had arrived based on observations of the current nest ledge. Only one bird at a time is visible and when one adult disappears onto the ledge it is down and out of sight for extended periods. Copulation continues on this day so the clutch is in the making but not complete.
April 30th - From 11:00am to 1:30pm Caspian was down on the nest ledge incubating. The male was active but did not come close enough or long enough for a full band read. I can confirm the solid black recovery band and the R over 4 ?. The second digit remains unknown. The adult male was incredibly busy. He chased off a third peregrine that was not looking for a serious fight, brought in a pigeon for the pair to share and attacked a Turkey vulture floating through. He took over incubation for Caspian at 2pm.
It looks like there is still hope for a hatch this year at the Holcim site and we will continue to work on identifying the new male with Caspian. Again, a huge thank you to Armando and the staff at Holcim for all of their help tracking this seasons changes and progress.
Posted on May 1, 2015 9:19 am
April 28, 2015 - Mississauga - Holcim
Mark Nash Reports:
April 28th - 2015
Here is an update with photos, thanks to Stephanie, of the nest site on Tuesday April 28.
Notice in one of the pictures labeled: (Possible 5th egg?),, certainly looks like an additional egg.
Armando
Posted on April 29, 2015 1:33 pm
April 27, 2015 - Mississauga - Holcim
Mark Nash Reports:
Hi Everyone,
Here is an update on the Peregrines situation at the HCA plant, as of April 27, 2015.
April 27, 2015, Incubation is taking place, as in any other year. At 12:30pm, I observed what
looked like a change of shift, however when I noticed it, I could not say for sure that the male had come out from sitting on the eggs. All I noticed was him sitting on the corner of the nest ledge, and a couple of minutes later Caspian was on the ledge of the building directly to the east. Within 5 minutes she flew to the nest. I hurried up to the top of the silos to confirm this, and she was sitting on the eggs. The male flew off. (I was able to get a glimpse of his tag, but can’t confirm the bottom number on the black band.) The top letter was an “R”.It looked like (R over 12).
April 23, 2015, at 7am we observed that 3 of the eggs had been been turned over (reddish color
facing up) and Caspian started sitting on them. The same goes for Friday April 24th.
On Wednesday afternoon, April 22, the eggs were still undisturbed, and were already fairly
faded in color.
April 7, 2015, Storm (male) found dead. No incubation takes place from this day onward.
Monday, April 6, 2015, 4 eggs in the nest, likely laid over the weekend.
Armando.
Posted on April 27, 2015 1:17 pm
April 12, 2015 - Mississauga - Holcim
Tracy Simpson Reports:
I arrived at Avonhead Road in the morning and found Caspian and the young male flying through the centre of the plant. It was clear that the chases going on were not entirely aggressive nor were they friendly. It seemed as though they were getting to know each other and setting some boundaries. Caspian broke away from the aerial chase and landed on the southeast corner of the nest ledge but made no move to enter and cover the eggs. The male landed on the main building in the plant on the southeast corner. The pair stared at each other from their respective perches for almost 20 minutes and then the male took off. All of his flights for the next 10 minutes were around the main building in the plant which he circled half a dozen times before landing again on the top of the structure. Caspian flew over and landed on the corner of the main building that the male had just left and he began stooping her as she sat. She didn’t move for quite some time until the male decided to find a perch of his own. He circled for about 5 minutes and finally landed on a light half way up the tallest stack in the plant. He stayed there for about 5 minutes and then was off in a stoop to the north. Caspian followed and the two disappeared from my sight.
Caspian returned to the main plant area but this time to a spot I did not anticipate; the old nest box on the east side of the main building. She entered the box and vocalized drawing the male in to investigate. He landed on top of the nest box and the two were vocalizing back and forth for a few minutes. He was the first to take off and she bolted out of the box in pursuit. It was an aggressive gesture but she did not make contact, just drove him out. She flew back and landed on the southeast corner of the main building and he continued to circle, stoop and finally decided to soar above the plant. And soar he did. It took him about 10 minutes of soaring and circling but he succeeded in reaching his goal… …the very top of the tall stack in the heart of the plant. Just below the opening at the top of the stack is an enormous steel ring (for lack of a better description) and he landed neatly on the top lip of that ring. Impressive. He stayed for about 15 minutes and was off again to the main building stooping her on her corner. He gave up trying to drive her off and into the air and flew over to the Avonhead side of the plant landing on the nest ledge. Caspian was off like a shot and landed right in front of him. She aggressively drove him off of the ledge and he disappeared from view. She stayed on the nest ledge for about 30 minutes before taking off again and at no time did she step back onto the ledge to the eggs. She flew back over to the old nest box and once again entered. She stayed for almost 20 minutes; in and scraping then out on the porch roosting. He didn’t visit her there this time but instead continued his flights around the main structure. After about 3 hours I left these two to continue to sort things out.
One thing I can say for sure is that in the three hours I was there that Caspian is still on site and I once again confirmed that it was her. She has abandoned the clutch of four eggs she was incubating, most likely during the intense rainfall we had on Thursday night. The young immature male is still very much in the territory and I again confirmed his age through plumage. I am also fully confident that he is the male I saw on April 7th with a solid black recovery band and yellow tape over his USFW band as I was able to see these features as well. All of their attention is focused on each other and working out their partnership in the territory. Several Turkey vultures, Red tailed hawks and one Harrier came right through the plant and drew no attention from either bird; they were fixated on each other. Bruce Massey will be going down today (Sunday) to continue the observations of the pair and attempt to read the band on the immature male if he comes close enough.
Posted on April 12, 2015 8:50 am
April 10, 2015 - Mississauga - Holcim
Tracy Simpson Reports:
I visited the site briefly today to see whether Caspian was about and if the immature male was with her. When I came down Avonhead Road she was on the corner of the low silos and preening intensely. It was extremely windy so I set up my scope (she was too close not to try) using my car as a wind block and I was able to confirm that the female is Caspian with a black S over green 40 band. She stayed out preening the entire time I was there and she kept glancing back at the nest ledge every once in a while. After about 20 minutes she took off and flew into the heart of the plant where she landed on an exterior light housing that I haven’t seen her use before. Just as she settled in the immature male came whipping in and dove past her. She didn’t flinch or react in any way so I don’t see this as an aggressive action by the male; rather more like showing off. She maintained her position on the top of the light and he flew out to the west. I left after an hour of observation and at no time did she return to the nest ledge or the eggs. I will be back down on Saturday to spend as much time as I can and will update you on her situation. Coupled with the great observations by Armando we will have a good idea of what is going on for the 2015 season soon.
Posted on April 11, 2015 9:49 am
