An early morning check on the family.
I must have just missed a feeding. The little ones are certainly mobile and one appears to explore a little further than the others.
There has not been much to get excited about here lately but the last couple of days the birds appear to be showing signs of courtship behaviour. It may be too late for a 2nd clutch this year but the birds have been seen scraping & e-chupping & they have not been doing that since the terretorial dispute (there has been no sign of 3rd falcon in the area lately). We have not seen any copulation but as I have stated, this pair is really hard to view from our vantage point.
As many of you already know, the situation here in Rochester , NY has changed dramatically. Mariah was injured in a territorial battle and is now under the care of a Vet in Syracuse, NY and Kaver did not return from his migration.
Rochester now has a new pair, Beauty (2007) from Pittsburgh, PA and Archer (2006) from Pt Colborne, Ontario, Canada. In a strange twist of fate, Archer is the grandson of Mariah & Kaver.
Archer and Beauty are currently incubating eggs on the east end of Midtown Plaza. There are no cameras on this site and no way of knowing how many eggs have been laid.
The Rochester Watchers are keeping an eye on the situation and I’ll report if anything changes.
Saturday 2:45 feeding time. There are now 4 hatches, and the smallest is very small compared to the eldest sitting beside it. One egg still in view, not sure if this one will be viable
Rhea Mae feeds the little ones very well and they are getting bigger. This photo taken just as feeding was finishing. I guess all the feathers make a wonderful and warm feather bed with the cool temperatures anticipated for the coming evenings.
The live web cam is back on line. Thanks MG
Great news that “Sir” Adam Beck has been identified.
Bill and I arrived at the Lift Bridge around 1:00 pm. Mom had the kids tucked in the back corner of the nest box and was keeping them well protected and hidden. There were no little white heads visible. “Sir” was standing guard from the face of the Hamilton Tower. Mom left the nest box at one point and dove on one of the resident pigeons. It was an almost, but unfortunately not successful. She quickly returned to the nest box and disappeared out of site.
Sorry, once again no photos today but tomorrow is another day.
At about 3:45 Wednesday afternoon Kathy and I stopped in at the Scarborough Bell Site to see if the birds Mark and I saw on Tuesday were still there and still active at the box.
I brought a spotting scope with me in the hope I could get their band numbers and identify the pair.
At first we saw nothing but about 5 minutes later 2 falcons flew off the tower and landed on the nest box front porch and copulated.
By 4:00 Kathy had to leave me still running and at about 4:30 Bruce joined me on the chase.
We then spent about an hour and a half running from one vantage point to another as we no sooner got the scope and tripod set in place and focused on one of them when it would fly off to another position or the male would fly in or off and copulate with her.
finally at about 6:00 they settled down and Bruce and I were able get a good look at the black and green band on the Female and got the numbers and saw a pinkish band on the male but he wouldn’t Show the black band.
We were anxiously waiting for Mark to show up with his camera so he could get some photos of the pair to help verify the band numbers and confirm what we were seeing when they copulated again for the 8th time just minutes before Mark arrived.
Another check on the William Osler pair today still has the unknown / still un-identified pair in hard incubation. Everything appears to be as it should, and we all have our fingers crossed as a hatch is expected very soon!
Stay tuned……….
While I don’t believe that we have have an official update on the pairs ID’s / leg band digits this season, for those that have asked for the last confirmation of the birds identity, this is what we had:
The territorial adult male was banded: Black 26 over Green H - named Freddie, produced in Toledo Ohio USA
The territorial adult female was banded: Black N over Green 77, - named Voltaire
It appears that the adult peregrines on site at Scarborough Bell building were more than active today to say the least!! After hooking up with Marion and Bruce on site in the late afternoon and early evening after a flurry of telephone calls from Marion to hurry up and get there with the camera, I was blown away by the amount of observations that that that the two had witnessed. The adult pair were observed in full courtship mode, with at least 8 copulations having been witnessed in less than three hours. With lots of vocalizing, and many short flights with the pair in and out of the hack box on numerous occasions. While the adult male never gave them a real good look at his leg bands, the adult female did, exposing her Black over Green band, 91 over V. After checking my e-mail communication from our good friends in Rochester from last year, it appears that the adult is non-other than Linn, produced in Rochester New York at the Kodak nest site in 2007. She was photographed and observed several times last year with an adult male also wearing a Black over Green coloured leg band and a pinkish /purple coloured USFW band,, both at the Scarborough water tower and the Bell building. While the photos I have are not the best and were taken after all of the best action had finished, it does show an decent view of Linn as she appeared from the inside of the hack box. Look for Marion’s report
Stay tuned………
