UPDATE! 22 March 2008- Scroll to the bottom for a picture of Freedom’s new mate!

Rochester Falconcam team member Carol Phillips has received information from Doug, one of Freedom’s caretakers at his nest site in Port Colborne, Ontario Canada. Doug writes:

I just thought you should know that Freedom appears to have a new mate. The resident female here in Port Colborne “Purity” left in the fall. We think she may have migrated (for the 1st time). I’m sure I saw her back on Feb. 19^th but have not seen her since. There is a new girl on the block here. She is a [juvenile] produced in Mississauga Ontario in 2007. Her name is Millie (same name as one of Freedom’s 1st offspring!). This bird has been here the entire winter. Freedom & Millie are exhibiting courtship behaviours. Since Millie is so young, we’re not sure if they will be able to have a clutch this year or not. We do have our fingers crossed though. If things change, I will let you guys know.

This is very surprising, unexpected news indeed! It would be unusual for an adult female to be driven away by a juvenile, unless the adult were very old or injured in some way. Since Purity is unbanded, her age is undetermined. Any guesses about why she was replaced by Millie would be pure speculation, so we’ll just wait to see what we can learn.

We’re working on getting more information about Millie (and hopefully a picture or two of her) from our friends at the Canadian Peregrine Foundation. We’ll be sure to bring all the news to you as soon as we receive it.

UPDATE! 22 March 2008
We’ve recently received this picture of Millie from Doug, one of Freedom’s caretakers at his Port Colbourne nest site!

Thanks Doug and Carol for the update!

-Jess

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 1:21 PM and is filed under Journal, Offspring Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.