For the last 3 weeks, Trillium has been commited to incubating 1 lonely egg. 2 days ago she gave up & the egg sits in the box unincubated & so far uneaten. Disapointment again.
After losing an egg yesterday, Trillium has produced another to replace it! She seems dedicated to incubation & is rarely off the eggs (all 2 of them).
Sometime between Friday May 8th at 2pm & Monday May 11th at 7am, Trillium laid another egg. This is the 3rd egg we have witnessed this year. I have a feeling that there were probably more but we weren’t around to confirm the fact. Yesterday & today she seemed to be taking good care of the egg. I’ll let you know if & when she gets hungry enough to eat the latest edition.
Today I turned the monitor on & the egg produced yesterday is gone. I assume the resident female consumed it.
After a valliant effort of the juvie that has been hanging around trying to take over the site, Trillium has prevailed and today she has produced an egg at exactly 1:30 pm. We sure hope this turns out OK. Stay tuned.
Since the territorial confrontation which occured last Saturday, we have not seen Trillium (the resident female) on site. Today I witnessed our resident male, who we call Buffalo Bill courting a juvie with a black over green band which is the same as his. We don’t know for sure but it looks like the young female falcon may have ousted Trillium the “unfit Mom” (who keeps eating her eggs). I’ll try to identify the young falcon by her band numbers if she sticks around.
On Mar. 26th we noticed a 3rd falcon on site. There was an aerial battle which saw the resident male (I thought) kind of reluctantly chase a juvie female from the site. Since then there have been more confrontations. On Apr. 11th a juvie banded female was in the nest box for about an hour while the two resident adults dive bombed her. She was confident and stayed her ground. The male landed in the box briefly & left, the juvie stayed. However, later both adults entered the box & the juvie left immediately. They then continued the battle in air. Today again there were 3 falcons on site. Who prevails remains to be seen. If the young falcon prevails, perhaps there is still hope for some success here this year since the resident female has a penchant for eating her own eggs. Fingers crossed!
On Monday Mar. 30th at 6:30 am I turned on the monitor at work & and was pleased to observe one perfect looking egg in the scrape. However, only to discourage us this year as they have the past 5 years I witnessed at about 10:00 am the resident female broke & consumed the egg. This egg couldn’t have been much more than 24 hours old.
Yesterday we went for our daily walk along Lake Erie at Gravely Bay in Port Colborne. My wife and I and our yellow Lab came across a Peregrine Falcon feasting on a gull. I spoke to a person who told me he has been watching him eating for about 20 minutes. My wife told me if you want to go home and get the camera go ahead , I said sure so I ran home in the truck got the camera and went back. Luckily he was still there I was very excited to photograph this beautiful creature.
John Borg
