August 07, 2013 - Port Colborne - ADM Mill
Doug Garbutt Reports:
Eve is enjoying her new found skill of flight. Tonight she was taking advantage of the strong & steady winds coming off of Lake Erie to kite & also use them for great speed. Mom was watching from an appropriate perch. I was only there for about 15 minutes so I didn’t observe her on the hunt. I think her constant vocalization was keeping the pigeons hiding. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll try & get some shots of her in flight. So far, all is well. When I see her in flight I have to thank Mark Nash & Anne Yagi for giving her this chance by moving her off of the narrow beam she was originally on and into the safety of the nest box. Had we left her on the beam, she would surely have perished.
Posted on August 7, 2013 11:21 pm
August 04, 2013 - Port Colborne - ADM Mill
Doug Garbutt Reports:
I’m happy to report that sometime between 3pm yesterday & 1pm today Eve had a successfull fledge. She was high on the fire escape when I arrived today. Way up on the 11th floor. She was really squawking. Shortly after I got there, Mom did a couple of fly-bys with a food package. On her second pass, Eve took off after her. Her take off & flight skills looked pretty good. I did not see her land though. Mom rewarded her with the meal. I was lucky enough to get a couple of pics before she took off with Mom.
Posted on August 4, 2013 8:39 pm
July 31, 2013 - Port Colborne - ADM Mill
Doug Garbutt Reports:
During the last two weeks, whenever I have been able to view Eve in the nest box she has always looked lazy & not too energenic. Normally we see juvies at this age very active.I think that because I can only view her on my lunch break for about 10 minutes that I could be missing the whole picture. I was actually worried about her health as she would just be laying around. Yesterday & today are a whole different story. Eve was scwacking and excercising her wings like she was ready to take off. At one point, I thought she was going to go but she had second thoughts and decided to wait. Mom & Dad are trying to coax her to fledge by not bringing dinner & doing some teasing fly-bys but Eve is so far staying tight in the nest box. I’ll be surprised if she does not fledge tommorow. Stay tuned!!!
Posted on July 31, 2013 9:49 pm
July 17, 2013 - Port Colborne - ADM Mill
Doug Garbutt Reports:
Yesterday (July 16th) our young falcon was banded. This comes about 10 days after it was transferred from the precarious beam it was on to the safety of the nest box. All went well as Anne Yagi, Mark Nash, Rolf Numsen, Nick and myself made our trek up the neverending stairwell to the 12th floor where the nest box is located. I think we all must have shed a few pounds with the heat & humidity! After closing the drop down door at the front of the box, the rear door was opened to extract the juvenile for banding. As usual, Anne came well equipped & had everything ready for the procedure as the young one arrived at the table. She determined without doubt that we have a healthy female approximately 23 days old weighing in at 878 gms with an empty crop. The young one was then equipped with a solid black band S over 32 and red tape covering her USFW band. I took the liberty of naming her Eve. According to both Anne & Mark, this is the latest known banding in this region ever. Many thanks to the expertise of both of them for the safe handling of this young falcon & giving it a shot at survival. As usual, we are nervous about the whole fledge thing but will do the best we can to help Eve succeed.
Posted on July 17, 2013 9:47 pm
July 05, 2013 - Port Colborne - ADM Mill
Doug Garbutt Reports:
July 5th - 2013
Today was a huge relief for us here in Port Colborne. The only surviving young hatchling we have was successfully transferred from the narrow I-beam it was hatched on to the safety of our nest box!
The extraction and transfer was done by Mark Nash from the CPF and Anne Yagi from the MNR. It all went like clockwork as the bird was safety removed from the narrow I-beam & and transferred into the box. Special thanks to ADM management for their support and cooperation, and to Rolf Numsen for ensuring all safety measures were followed.
As to be expected, Mom & Dad were not too happy about the whole affair, (and Mark will not be on their X-Mass card list again this year), however, this will give the young peregrine hatchling a shot at survival.
Later in the evening Mom was able to locate her missing chick in the nest box and everything returned back to normal. I’m sure she was quite relieved. We know very well from the past, that if the hatchling had not been moved, it surely would have fallen to it death from the narrow I-beam and perished as did its other sibling this season. This could have easily been a repeat story when three other hatchlings several years ago fell to their death when the resident adult female was forced to nest on the I-beam due to a rouge female peregrine that had been fighting with and terrorizing our resident pair to take over the nest box.
Sadly, as you know, this year the same thing has been happening with competition from yet another rouge sub-adult female fighting with our resident pair for the nest box and territory. While we were not able to recover the body of the second young hatchling that disappeared this season, (believed also to also have fallen to its death from the narrow I-beam where our resident adult female was forced to lay and successfully hatch two of the her eggs), we have at least been able save this little one in time.
We are looking forward to about 10 days +/- from now, when they will return to band the baby hatchling.
As a foot note, remember that CPF could not transfer the young hatchlings until they reached an age when the young hatchlings are able to regulate their body temperature, (in the on-sight that it took the parents some time to finally give up their searching of the old I-beam nest location and attend to the hatchling in the nest box). The hatchling is now somewhat mobile at this age, and can now migrate around the nest box to also get in and out of the direct sunlight for shade (and visa versa for warmth) when not being brooded by the adults.
As you recall, CPF had to perform a similar action many years at our site when the resident adult female successfully hatched eggs on this same I-beam. The year prior to this, all three of the young hatchlings produced fell to their death. A nest box was manufactured by CPF and installed by us and the following year, and when the adults re-nested on the I-beam, and the hatchlings were successfully transferred to the new nest box.
All survived to successfully fledge and grew to healthy juveniles attended by their adult parents.
Up until this year, the nest box has been used each year by our resident adults.
Stay tuned for more updates……..
Posted on July 5, 2013 10:06 pm
June 26, 2013 - Port Colborne - ADM Mill
Doug Garbutt Reports:
We are happy to report that 2 of the 3 eggs produced here have hatched. The 1st hatched on Sat. June 22 & the 2nd was either on the 25th or 26th. We have no video so I have to monitor the progress on my lunch breaks & try not to upset Trillium. I can report that the falcons chose not to use the nest box & made their scrape on a beam instead. This will pose a problem for Mark & his team who I’m sure will want to relocate the young ones to the nest box for a better chance of survival. It’s not the 1st time they have had this challenge and hopefully everything will work out.
Posted on June 26, 2013 7:51 pm
June 08, 2013 - Port Colborne - ADM Mill
Doug Garbutt Reports:
I last reported that Trillium was on 3 eggs. She is still on the scrape but won’t get off long enough for me to view if all 3 are still there. She appears to be in hard incubation. Buffalo Bill stands on guard.
Posted on June 8, 2013 9:07 pm
May 18, 2013 - Port Colborne - ADM Mill
Tracy Simpson Reports:
Bruce and I headed out to the Port Colborne area to check up on Buffalo Bill and Trillium who we last saw at the Robin Hood mill 4km to the north up the canal. It appeared that the pair may in fact try to reclutch in a vent on the canal side of the mill and there was much evidence of whitewash indicating they were here most often. This was all due in part to the visit by a juvenile coming into her sub adult year that we believe was Lucky Seven based on her band configuration and tape colours. When we arrived in Port Colborne, we headed to the Robin Hood mill first and all was very quite, too quite for nesting peregrines. We checked the vents and overhangs very carefully and could not locate Trillium or Buffalo Bill. We decided to head down to the ADM mill and see if we could locate the pair there. After scanning the buildings and marina, we located Buffalo Bill on the gridwork of the main building roosting. He sat for quite some time and we decided to wait him out as we were coming into the “witching hour” when peregrines look for the last food of the day. We weren’t disappointed as Bill came off of the tower and stooped low over the canal. He returned to the gridwork shortly with talons empty. After a brief rest, he was off again. This time he went out over the lake and out of our view. He returned in 5 minutes without food for the second time. Suddenly Bruce says, “Here he comes!” and he wasn’t kidding! Bill came right over our heads fairly low and on a mission. He flew past the marina towards town and went into a spectacular stoop behind some distant trees. We waited for his return but after 40 minutes he was still absent. Success!! We are sure he was chowing down somewhere and so we left for the drive hack to the Raptor Centre. With the observations of new eggs that Doug has posted, this all makes sense. Bill was onsite for an hour and a half and staying very close to the main building. Hopefully Buffalo Bill and Trillium can now enjoy a bit more privacy and we will eagerly await the potential hatch of young. A huge thank you to Doug and the ADM team for keeping a sharp eye on their pair and being such awesome hosts.
The pictures aren’t great as Bill caught me by surprise but I have added a couple of him whipping through.
Posted on May 22, 2013 8:59 am
May 21, 2013 - Port Colborne - ADM Mill
Doug Garbutt Reports:
I would like to report that our resident female is sitting on 3 new eggs. Hopefully all goes well this time.
Posted on May 21, 2013 8:07 pm
May 03, 2013 - Port Colborne - ADM Mill
Doug Garbutt Reports:
I was able to get to the ADM “satellite” nest (aka Robin Hood) & there was no activity. However, the nest is hard to get a site line on. Perhaps Trillium was on eggs & Buffalo Bill was back at ADM with the Sub adult. I’ll keep an eye on them.
Posted on May 3, 2013 7:13 pm
