Urban Peregrines
Well . . . . I'm currently back home now . . . and I can't load pictures from here. I had gone to hang out a bit at Paneras, and was able to load pictures no problem. Maybe there is something wrong with the settings of the WiFi at home. I'll have to explore that sometime, as I was able to load pictures earlier this evening. (Update . . . next day at the library, loaded no problem . . . so the problem must be with the connection at home.)
While on my little mini trip last week I did an Internet search first, and discovered that Hawk Ridge near Duluth, MN has a Peregrine Watch going on right now in downtown Duluth. Seems a wild pair of peregrines have taken to the nestbox that was placed on one of the buildings, and have been raising a family. They laid 4 eggs, but so far only one eyas has survived. I followed the instructions on the website, and found the watch location. On that particular day one of the naturalists, Julia, was onsite with a couple of other volunteers from Hawk Ridge to give information to people, provide telescopes to see the nest and birds, and there is also a remote camera that has been placed inside the nest box.
While I was there visiting I did see both parents doing their job. The tiercel hangs out pretty much on a church tower in the downtown area. The people from Hawk Ridge call it his 'garage' . . . for he must hang out there a lot. I spotted him and noticed he was feeding. He must have just recently caught something . . . most likely a pigeon. While there, we saw him fly up and do a food transfer to the falcon. For any of my non-falconry audience, the female peregrine is always called the 'falcon' . . . the male the 'tiercel'. The term 'tiercel' means 'one-third' for the male is about a third the size as the female. The term 'tiercel' has become a standard term applied to male raptors, though technically it really only belongs to the male falcon. So, we saw him 'bring home the bacon', and the falcon then took the food into the nest box, and I was able to see her feed it to the eyas on the camera. It was all good! I visited with the volunteers, and we chatted raptors.
Hawk Ridge has a banding station in the fall during the migration. Duluth is one of the major hot spots for migration, for many birds are routed through because it is at the tip of Lake Superior, and birds migrating south are very reluctant to fly over large bodies of water. So they hit the lake, and then follow it down until the lake ends, which is at Duluth. If I was able to, I'd love to go volunteer for a couple days in the fall while that is going on.
Go visit their site if you are curious about it. Click on the link ----> Hawk Ridge
If you navigate that site you will also find a link to a photographer who has used much better equipment and gotten many really good close-up shots of the pair, and previous successful nesting attempts. He's been kind enough to allow Hawk Ridge to use some of his work for promotional purposes.
While on my little mini trip last week I did an Internet search first, and discovered that Hawk Ridge near Duluth, MN has a Peregrine Watch going on right now in downtown Duluth. Seems a wild pair of peregrines have taken to the nestbox that was placed on one of the buildings, and have been raising a family. They laid 4 eggs, but so far only one eyas has survived. I followed the instructions on the website, and found the watch location. On that particular day one of the naturalists, Julia, was onsite with a couple of other volunteers from Hawk Ridge to give information to people, provide telescopes to see the nest and birds, and there is also a remote camera that has been placed inside the nest box.
While I was there visiting I did see both parents doing their job. The tiercel hangs out pretty much on a church tower in the downtown area. The people from Hawk Ridge call it his 'garage' . . . for he must hang out there a lot. I spotted him and noticed he was feeding. He must have just recently caught something . . . most likely a pigeon. While there, we saw him fly up and do a food transfer to the falcon. For any of my non-falconry audience, the female peregrine is always called the 'falcon' . . . the male the 'tiercel'. The term 'tiercel' means 'one-third' for the male is about a third the size as the female. The term 'tiercel' has become a standard term applied to male raptors, though technically it really only belongs to the male falcon. So, we saw him 'bring home the bacon', and the falcon then took the food into the nest box, and I was able to see her feed it to the eyas on the camera. It was all good! I visited with the volunteers, and we chatted raptors.Hawk Ridge has a banding station in the fall during the migration. Duluth is one of the major hot spots for migration, for many birds are routed through because it is at the tip of Lake Superior, and birds migrating south are very reluctant to fly over large bodies of water. So they hit the lake, and then follow it down until the lake ends, which is at Duluth. If I was able to, I'd love to go volunteer for a couple days in the fall while that is going on.
Go visit their site if you are curious about it. Click on the link ----> Hawk Ridge
If you navigate that site you will also find a link to a photographer who has used much better equipment and gotten many really good close-up shots of the pair, and previous successful nesting attempts. He's been kind enough to allow Hawk Ridge to use some of his work for promotional purposes.
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