I arrived around 10:00am and found a peregrine in the ledges between the upper span of window, plucking at prey. Feathers were flying all over the place. It then took the food and flew to the south side of the hospital. Finally I got to see the peregrines.
After not seeing any activity on the east ledges for the past week, I finally was able to see a hand off of the nest ledge. “Seven” quietly appeared on the edge of the ledge around 2:15 p.m. and flew to south west area of the hospital and out of sight. Hunter came around and entered the nest area. This is a good indication that they are still in full incubation. It is not possible to see how many eggs there are from any angle, which is unfortunate, but we will have to wait until little white heads appear.
I have been making regular visits to Mount Sinai and I have not seen any activity on the east ledges for a few days now. It could be they are either in full incubation, or have moved the courtship behaviour to the west side of the hospital. Frequent observations will continue to confirm if either they are actually nesting or have moved to a different area.
A quick visit to Mount Sinai today and I found “Seven” having a meal on the 2nd ledge east side. I did not see Hunter, although he may have been out of my view. One large T.V passed over the area and no reaction from the peregrines. A few minutes later, a smaller T.V floated over the area and much lower. We waited and out came “Seven” on the chase to push out the low flying T.V. She made contact with the vulture over the area of College and Bay streets, and continued the chase. Can’t tell you what happened to the T.V, it was very low. I suspect Seven grounded the T.V. and then flew back to Mount Sinai. All was quiet after that. It doesn’t appear at this time they are paying much attention to one particular ledge of the hospital. More observations will be required to confirm if they do indeed have eggs.
Last weekend Linda, Bruce and I followed up on an observation made by Linda that something was different at the Mount Sinai nest site. A male was hanging around being quite visible and a second bird had made a brief appearance. On March 30th, the three of us gathered down at University and Gerrard for a day of observations and we weren’t to be disappointed. It was then that we confirmed the presence of a second bird, not a passerby, staying within the territory and working things out with the male in the area who we had yet to confirm as Hunter. As the light was fading that Sunday, we agreed that this warranted further investigation and yesterday we set up for a full day of watching.
We found the male on the east side of Mount Sinai in the second ledge from the north and the female in the third. Not only is she easy to distinguish based on her size but also her constant vocalizations at the male. There were several flights during the morning and early afternoon and each time the male took flight, she would follow along behind him wherever he went. The male was prone to land and roost on places that Hunter had always used in the past leading us to believe that it may still be him, but who was she?
It wasn’t until midday that we really got a period of time with them both hanging around Mount Sinai for a good look at them. The male flew into the north ledge of the hospital and that started quite a ruckus. He had food. He had retrieved a cache from that ledge and flew around to the east side of Mount Sinai to a nook just below their ledge of interest for potential nesting. The female came bombing in screaming her head off and picked his pocket. She now had herself a pigeon and was eating away while he flew up to the ledge above for a nap seeing as she was now occupied. It was then that we were able to get a good look at her and she is absolutely banded… …backwards. Her USFW is on her left leg and her Canadian recovery band on her right. We were then able to get a look at the recovery band briefly and saw that the top letter is an X and of the double digit on the bottom we could clearly see it started with a 9. There is only one bird with this band configuration and combination making her ID fairly easy. We can say with 99% certainty that this is Seven, hatched at the Niagara Gorge nest site in 2012 to Diamond and Onyx. Some of you will remember that last year in April she busied herself stirring up trouble at the ADM Mills nest site in Port Colbourne and was photographed intruding upon the local pair. It seems that she is now settled at the Mount Sinai Hospital with a male.
After eating she sought him out again and started to vocalize and pester once more. There were several flights by the pair and she finally settled herself in the second ledge on the east side where we witnessed him flying in and and mating with her. This settled her down for a while and the two napped and preened on the east side for the rest of the afternoon. Things became active again just after 5pm when the pair set out on a hunt. Unlucky in their attempts, Seven flew up to the Hakim Optical building where she found a cache on the northwest corner and the male retrieved his own stash from the IA building. He flew out and up to the top corner in the sun to eat and it was then that we clearly could see the Black over Green H/D recovery band confirming Hunter as the resident male hatched in 2000 at the Rhodes Office Tower in Ohio. Seven joined him on the building where they mated a second time after which he went off to the east ledges of Mount Sinai for a nap and she flew up to the Intact sign to preen.
This is excellent news for the Mount Sinai nest site! We will have to wait and see what this means for the nesting season and whether they achieve success in hatching young. Most certainly this territory will now be on our watch list and we will keep you updated on their progress. I want to thank Bruce and Linda for a great day of discovery and look forward to the season to come with these two awesome birds.
Pictures will follow later today after a I have had a chance to tidy them up!
A report just in from Linda. On the south side of Mount Sinai Hospital she has located a single peregrine sitting in the same position as Hunter and Ranger habitually used to sit on cold days for the morning warm up. While we cannot confirm that this is in fact Hunter, a chance exists that it is based on the birds size, behavior and roost choices . It looks like he may still be in the area and holding on to the Mount Sinai territory on his own. When the frigid weather breaks, we will be down to the territory to see if we can locate the bird and confirm whether this is indeed Hunter. Thank you so much Linda for this most important update on the Mount Sinai territory.
December 27th - 2013
It is with sad news that we must report about news received this afternoon - (Jan 2nd 2014) that a deceased adult female peregrine was recovered from the downtown city streets of Toronto. We have been able to identify the peregrine as being one of our long standing resident territorial adults,, named Ranger, a peregrine produced in 2001 at the Kodak nest site in Rochester New York, USA.
Both Ranger and her mate (named Hunter,,, a 2000 year produced peregrine from Ohio USA) has been nesting here in Toronto at several different nest locations for almost 12 years. Both peregrines have been closely monitored by the Canadian Peregrine Foundation staff and volunteers for a very long time indeed and have been part of Toronto’s landscape.
Sadly, Ranger and Hunter were never successful in hatching any of their eggs year after year despite all of their dedicated efforts. It certainly was not from the lack of trying, as the pair remained fateful to one another since their arrival almost 12 years ago! They produced several clutches of eggs every year, (some years, they produced three clutches of eggs),,, and underwent continuous prolonged incubation periods on every clutch of eggs!! The pair spent some 50 days of prolonged incubation on several of the clutches and refused to give up incubating until the eggs finally imploded.
Ranger and Hunter spent time at the old up-town Toronto nest site, - (the Canadian Tire building at Yonge & Eglinton),,, at the Four Seasons Hotel nest site at Bay Street & Yonge Street,,, and their final nest territorial nest site in downtown Toronto at the Mt Sinai Hospital nest site.
We received communication from Mark Heaton from Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources today - (Jan. 2nd - 2014) that a deceased peregrine was picked up from the streets on Dec. 27th 2013. Photos were forwarded along to us clearly showing the Black A over Red 0 leg band numbers.
One of the photos shows evidence of a wrist injury on her left wing, but as of this date, we have no details of the cause of her death. Despite the minor injury to her wrist, Ranger appears to be in very good condition and very good weight.
You are advised that some of the images may be disturbing to look at.
Stay tuned…..
It was so great to see the pair active around Mount Sinai and we enjoyed watching the dynamics between the pair.
Here are a few more photos of the two of them. I don’t often have them down so low that I can get anything reasonably good so I was pleased to have this opportunity. They are both so gorgeous. It was difficult in the low light to get great shots but I hope you enjoy seeing the pair pictured here.
On Sunday, Bruce and I were out and about checking on Toronto nest sites and decided to pop in on the Mount Sinai territory. As many of you may know, this site has been in the talons of Ranger, now 12 years old from Rochester, New York and Hunter who is an Ohio male of 13 years of age. This pair have unfortunately never successfully hatched eggs since they began courting and mating at Yonge and Eglinton almost a decade ago. Even so, the pair has remained together and continue to control the skies around the Mount Sinai Hospital.
On Sunday, Bruce and I were treated to an up close version of the pair as they rocketed down Elm Street over towards the hospital. First Hunter arrived and landed on the low roof of the Toronto General Hospital. It wasn’t long before another falcon, this one an enormous flying fortess, came flapping up the street with a pigeon in her talons. Ranger! She landed three floors above street level on the east side of Mount Sinai and began to eat. Hunter, thinking this was a great idea, landed next to her and begged for a taste. That did not go over as well as he’d hoped. He tried to sneak in and grab a bite after patiently waiting for 15 minutes and Ranger simply turned sharply and knocked him right off the ledge and into the air. Brave man that Hunter trying to sneak a bite!! After feeding for about 20 minutes, Ranger attempted to cache the remains which Hunter was glad to take over to the Toronto General to eat.
It was great to see the pair and confirm that it is still Ranger and Hunter in the area. They are both very impressive birds to watch and it was a treat for us to see them at such a great vantage point. I have posted a couple of pictures and will post others soon.
No active nesting at this site, but today while viewing from the top floors of the Sheraton I was able to see an adult, sitting on the east facing ledges of the hospital.