Rfalconcam Forum

A deadly parasitic disease kills one of the four birds and has afflicted a second. It is a common ailment that affects the birds' digestive system.

Red, a male peregrine falcon being treated at Red Creek Wildlife Center in Schuylkill County for a head injury, is one of four falcons hatched this year in downtown Reading.
One of the four peregrine falcons that hatched this year in downtown Reading has died, and two more are hospitalized.

The bird known as Yellow, a female named for the tape on one of her legs, was found dead Sunday morning in her cage at a wildlife rehabilitation center.

She was being treated since last Tuesday for a disease called trichomoniasis at the Red Creek Wildlife Center in Schuylkill Haven, Schuylkill County.

A second female bird, this one with blue tape, was brought to the rehabilitation center by Pennsylvania Game Commission personnel Saturday night and is also suffering from the disease.

Peggy Hentz, owner of the center, said Blue's disease is not as advanced as Yellow's was, but Blue is in much worse physical condition.

Blue has lost about a third of her body weight since she was last weighed by the Game Commission on May 21.

The third bird, a male named Red, was brought in Thursday with a head injury from a collision with a vehicle at Fifth and Penn streets.

He is now eating on his own and will be returned to his parents' nest on a center city building this week, Hentz said.

Trichomoniasis, the illness that took the first bird and ails the other female, is a common parasitic disease affecting a bird's digestive system.

It causes a thick growth the consistency of hard cheese that fills an afflicted bird's crop, which processes food before it reaches the stomach. The growth kills the bird by filling its mouth, leaving it unable to eat and, eventually, to breathe.

When the now-dead female falcon arrived at the rehabilitation center, her crop was completely filled and the infection was in her mouth and airway.

Hentz said the parasite had not yet fully invaded Blue's oral cavity upon her arrival at the center.

However, Hentz said, Blue's condition is critical, and she is not confident that the bird will recover.

Hentz chose a five-day course of medication for both birds.

Emaciated when she arrived, Yellow had not yet gained weight at the center, but was not losing weight either. Hentz said Yellow had been improving before her death.

"She was vocalizing on Saturday," Hentz said. "We were real hopeful - and then she just crashed."

The birds had hatched in the nest on a downtown building. The Game Commission asked that its exact location not be published.

All three birds were found at Fifth and Penn streets.

The birds left the nest June 9, said F. Arthur McMorris, the Game Commission's peregrine falcon coordinator.

Game Commission personnel brought Red and Blue to the rehabilitation center. Yellow, the now-dead bird, was brought there by Heidi Gonzalez of Reading.

Four babies are considered a full brood for peregrine falcons, and the pair that live in Reading are the only couple in Berks County, McMorris said.

Peregrine falcons are very aggressive and don't allow others to nest within 10 miles of their home, McMorris said. The birds are banded and studied because they are an endangered species in Pennsylvania.

The fourth fledgling's whereabouts are unknown.

McMorris said it is not unusual for peregrine falcons to die young from injury or disease.

"Between one-half and three-quarters die before they reach the first year of age," he said. "It's a hazardous world."

This is very very sad. Poor falcons.  :crying:  :'(

Oh that is so sad!!  Too bad there is no inoculation they can give them when they are banded.  One of the sites in NJ gives the fledglings some sort of inoculation when banding, but don't know if it would prevent Trichomoniasis.  Poor little peregrines  :(

 :(  Poor babies!   :heart:

This is so sad!  Poor babies! :crying:

1 peregrine falcon fledgling from Reading nest still alive
A diseased female is euthanized, while the lone surviving raptor, a male, is doing well.

Three of this year's four peregrine falcon fledglings in Reading have died, less than two months after they hatched.

A female bird which had been suffering from a deadly parasitic disease was euthanized Wednesday morning, after the infection had eaten through its digestive organs.

"It was not going to survive," said Peggy Hentz, owner of Red Creek Wildlife Center near Schuylkill Haven, Schuykill County.

She was treating the bird for trichomoniasis, which forms a growth that invades the digestive system.

Hentz decided that euthanization was the best course of action.

"What we ended up doing was saving it from further suffering," she said.

A male bird, the fourth to be located after its siblings fledged June 9, was found dead in its parents' nest in center city Reading on Monday.

F. Arthur McMorris, the peregrine falcon coordinator with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, said it is unknown whether that bird ever left the nest.

No one had checked the nest since May 21, when the new birds were banded, so as not to disturb the family.

Personnel from the Game Commission brought the bird's body to Red Creek, where Hentz said she was not able to determine its cause of death.

"It had decomposed so thoroughly that there was no way that we could determine the immediate cause," she said.

Hentz said it appeared that this bird died before the other ones had even gotten sick.

Another female bird had been found dead Sunday at the rehabilitation center where it was being treated. It had also suffered from trichomoniasis.

The only survivor is a male bird that remains at Red Creek after sustaining a head injury when hit by a car. It is flying in an outdoor pen at the center, exercising and eating well.

Hentz said it will be returned to its parents' nest.

"The good news is we did save one," she said.


The lone surviving peregrine falcon fledgling from a center city Reading nest in a cage at the Red Creek Wildlife Center near Schuylkill Haven.

Surviving falcon returned to downtown Reading nest

The adult female peregrine falcon from a downtown Reading nest sits Wednesday on a ledge at Trinity Lutheran Church, Sixth and Washington streets.
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The only surviving peregrine falcon of this year's known city fledgings has been returned safely to its parents' nest at a downtown Reading office building.

"He did a few turns and landed nicely on the roof," said Arthur McMorris, peregrine falcon coordinator for the Pennsylvania Game Commission. McMorris was present for the Tuesday afternoon release.

He said the bird and its parents interacted well, the young bird begging for food and the parents vocalizing their greetings, in the way birds say hello, McMorris said.

Peggy Hentz, owner of Red Creek Wildlife Center near Schuylkill Haven, Schuylkill County, released the bird at 3:30 after treating it for a head injury at the center.

"To watch those birds fly through the air at eye level, it just leaves you with the feeling that those peregrine falcons, they own the air," she said. "They really do."

The bird was taken to the center June 17 after being hit by a car at Fifth and Penn streets.

The bird is one of four to be born to Reading's falcon pair this year, but the only one to survive. Its two sisters died from a parasitic digestive disease called trichomoniasis, and its brother, found dead in the nest, died of unknown causes.

McMorris said the remaining bird is in excellent health and was both flying and hunting well at the wildlife center before its release.

Hentz said a video of the bird flying with its parents is on the wildlife center's website, redcreekwildlifecenter.com.

"We always get to see (animals) broken and sick," Hentz said. "To actually be up there and have them flying around you. We were in awe."