Falcons back, with chicks
Peregrine young seen Saturday at bridge
Peregrine falcon couple Freddie and Voltaire are back nesting under the Ambassador Bridge and have two chicks this year.
The young appeared May 1 and the Windsor Peregrine Watch Team is already looking for volunteers to train to monitor the nest especially when the young get ready for a first flight in June.
Eighty per cent of peregrine falcon chicks don't survive and the team is hoping people will keep their distance or be trained at a May 16 workshop to help protect the fledglings when they are ready to fly.
"All we want to do is improve their odds," Windsor Peregrine Watch Team site co-ordinator Dennis Patrick said Friday.
It's the second year the peregrine falcons at the bridge have produced young. Last year one chick died and the other got injured, rescued and then disappeared. It's not clear what happened to that bird, but the adult peregrine falcons stayed in Windsor during the winter.
This year Patrick is asking people to keep their distance from the threatened species or train to be part of the watch team that is affiliated with the Canadian Peregrine Foundation. The training workshop is being held Sunday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Walker Road Superstore in the community room. Patrick said volunteers will work shifts to monitor the birds and will learn how to protect the peregrines during the mid June period when the fledglings attempt their first flights. Patrick said the team will have a protocol mandated by the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Canadian Peregrine Foundation and will only intervene if the young are in imminent danger.
The team hopes to train 20 to 25 volunteers for three-hour shifts during mid-June. He's asking people who aren't volunteers to respect the species at risk and the property at the bridge and the University of Windsor. Anyone whose presence is not in the best interest of the birds could be asked to leave, he said.
"If they could just understand, this is a National Geographic special right above our heads. We're seeing a bird make a comeback in an area where it was extinct," Patrick said of the importance of a successful nest.
Windsor is lucky to have a peregrine falcon nest since the cliff dwellers usually prefer a higher ledge on a skyscraper when in urban areas. And in flat Windsor, the Ambassador Bridge nest could be the first peregrine falcon nest ever in the area, said Marion Nash, vice-president of the Canadian Peregrine Foundation.
She said there are 88 nests in Ontario with most in northern Ontario. In the bird's comeback, "every single nest site is important," Nash said.
She said people interested in following peregrines can do so on the foundation's website at
www.peregrine-foundation.ca. She said too many gawkers can stress out the birds and since the peregrine falcons are territorial, it could be dangerous.
"Imagine a missile coming at you at 260 km/h," she said of the peregrine falcon's speedy dive.
When trained volunteers monitor nests, the 60 to 80 per cent mortality rate is reduced to 20 per cent, she said.
Peregrine populations declined around the world after the Second World War and the pesticide DDT was blamed. There were an estimated 100 pairs of breeding peregrine falcons in Ontario before the 1950s, Nash said. Most were in northern Ontario. That dropped to zero by the 1970s and 1980s, Nash said.
Without release programs, the peregrine falcon could be extinct, she said.
To attend the training workshop and volunteer during two weeks in mid-June, email
windsorperegrinewatch@yahoo.ca.
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I already guessed the 17th on that other thread. 
