Print Page - Asking about male peregrine falcon with only one leg

KITCHENER, ONTARIO:
Tuesday May 30, 2006
Mark Nash reports for Rudy Kruppa: I thought you all might be interested in this update now that we have confirmed the identity of at least one of the territorial peregrines that has been gracing the skies in downtown Kitchener Ontario these past 5 weeks.

While the pair has been very active in the Kitchener downtown core, they are not currently nesting as best as we can tell at this point. Their presence has been very apparent over the past 10 days as the increased e-mail communications of their activities has more than doubled. They have been difficult to identify due to the height of urban landscapes involved.

It has been confirmed that the adult territorial male is non other than “Dundas”, a one legged peregrine that was produced at the Hamilton Sheraton Hotel nest site in 2004. At some point after his fledge and disappearance / dispersal of the Hamilton Sheraton Hotel territory, Dundas was first observed at the Lime Ridge Mall in upper Hamilton –missing one of his legs. Not only has this little bird beat the odds and survived the past 3 Ontario winters on territory on the Hamilton Mountain area,,, it now appears that he has taken up residence and attracted a sub adult female companion. It looks like he has once again defied the odds, (given this bird’s obvious disability/handicap).

While is still very difficult to positively identify this male Pefa without reading the black coloured band number, we are not aware of any other “one legged” peregrines in the neighborhood. We have allot of colour video footage that was shot of this bird and submitted by a member of one of the local Hamilton TV/cable networks, in addition to the many independent observations and photos that have been submitted over the past two years. Dundas has quite a following indeed!!

This is a “tough little bird indeed”, as the last report that we had received on Dundas was approx. 10 weeks ago from Hamilton, where he was observed stooping on, and successfully killing a large pigeon. While he struggled to carry this very large prey to the shopping centre plaza rooftop, he was observed feasting on it atop of the plaza roof shortly after landing. Minutes later, he was both observed and photographed leaving his fresh kill, and chasing off two adult crows that had taken an interest in his meal. One of the crows was knocked to the ground in a spectacular hit. The crow was recovered by the observer, but had obviously died on impact as a result of Dundas’ strike. Dundas was observed returning to his kill on the plaza rooftop corner and finished his meal.

For the first winter, Dundas was constantly being observed and photographed in the Mall area eating his kills at ground level, - anywhere and everywhere! At one point he was observed eating on the sidewalk, twice in the street/roadway and actually disrupted the flow of traffic – (much to the delight of the many motorists and those who came to Dundas’ aid as they stopped the traffic in an effort to protect him). Numerous reports were submitted by local Hamilton residents and business community members as they watched Dundas eating in the mall parking lot on a bench, apparently not able to carry his prey to safer elevations. This past year - 2005, Dundas has been routinely observed carrying his kills to higher elevations without any problems.

You can see some of the video footage shot of Dundas as a juvenile on the CPF web site pages at the 2005 Hamilton Photo Gallery. It is a large download, but well worth the wait to see this little peregrine.

This just goes to show us, that some of these birds have an incredible ability to overcome and adapt. We are monitoring the situation very closely, and will continue to update.

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