Rfalconcam Forum

Uptown Theater

4816 N. Broadway

Thanks in large part to a successful reintroduction program in the 80s and 90s, the peregrine falcon is the official bird of Chicago, doing its best to keep the pigeon population manageable. But who’s actually ever seen one in the “wild” in the city? Peregrines are still seen from time to time perched atop the Metropolitan Correctional Center and other buildings in the South Loop area, but the Field Museum’s Stephanie Ware reports on her Chicago Peregrine Falcon Blog that the “prison pair” hasn’t nested at the MCC for a couple of years.

There are an estimated 20 nesting pairs in the city, and Mary Hennen, who heads the Field’s Peregrine Project, recommends the Uptown Theater, where a couple of peregrines have been nesting for years. One recent Sunday morning I drove by and spotted a frenzy of activity: one falcon had apparently brought home a kill and was in the process of feeding two chicks recently banded by Hennen. Evidently the birds, known for favoring cliff-dwelling nests, have taken to the barren backside of the abandoned theater. That’s just one more reason for the preservation of the glorious old building—as if we needed another. For point-and-click birders, one surefire place to see peregrines is on the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Peregrine Falcon Nest cam, affixed atop University Hall: tiny.cc/peregrines.

They are still all fluffy:

http://media.uic.edu/community/?webSiteID=0bEpakqxzkqqKmygnqdlug&videoID=aCY-iZzXXUy0JiBdUIWyFA (http://media.uic.edu/community/?webSiteID=0bEpakqxzkqqKmygnqdlug&videoID=aCY-iZzXXUy0JiBdUIWyFA) web cam

I hope Gigi and Zoom are still nesting at the theater.. K used to take some neat pix of them!

What happened to Kryz? I miss his "THINGS" and duct tape.

note: that cam in Donna's post is not at the Uptown but at UIC (University of Illinois).

Stephanie Ware's site, http://peregrines.erinyes.org/, though not recently updated, gives a good picture of Chicago's umpteen falcon scrapes. It's quite an extensive website. She works at the Field Museum with Mary Hennen. As for Uptown, g/g and Zoom are still nesting there: Stephanie's site reported in mid-May:
Chicago, Uptown Theater
Adult Female: Zoom (b/r *4/H), 1997, North Central Life, St. Paul, MN (10th year)
Adult Male: “Guy” (unnamed) (b/g G/G), 2001, NIPSCO Schahfer Plant, Wheatfield, IN (8th year)
Total young produced at site: 27.
10th year for this site.

An Uptown Theater page reported in June that:

"Mary reported ...that there are two male chicks ...about 25 to 28 days old. One was named Lord Stanley in honor of the Blackhawks and the other Rudy, after the late vaudevillian Rudy Horn, who lived in Uptown and recalled the theatre's colorful past."

I drive past there every other day or so and sometimes see falcons flying, but have not had time to watch there. It's only a couple of miles from where I live, but Evanston is a bit closer.

thanks Dale