Bruce has ID'd the new Burlington Lift Bridge female with DC's brother - there is a Rochester connection too as she is Beauty's niece!!  Her mother Hathor is Beauty's full sister (for those who don't know)

New Burlington Lift Bridge Female Identified
May 29, 2016 - Burlington - Lift Bridge
Tracy Simpson Reports:

A big thank you to Bruce Massey for spending the weekend chasing the identity of the new female on site. He was able to get a clear scope read today of her black over red 68/U band with a silver USFW. She is Jo from the Macomb County nest site in Michigan hatched in 2014 to Nick and Hathor.  What is quite exciting is that her father, Nick, is the offspring of Miriam, a 2003 release in Richmond Hill conducted by the CPF.

Great job Bruce and we will continue to watch for a hatch.

Even if only one hatches, I am very happy for Rhea Mae and Tiago! This has a tough year for them.

Me too Carol!  I think in their minds - numbers don't matter as long as they have one baby to raise they are content 

Marion has posted that baby had a nice meal at noon today.  Stinking hot out here today.

http://www.peregrine-foundation.ca/w/c/sightings/toronto-sheraton-centre/

 

First feeding going on now.  Can see little head and wing 

!!! William Osler Banding - 2 very healthy hatchlings sucessfully banded and sadly 2 were found dead!
May 26, 2016 - Etobicoke - William Osler

Mark Nash Reports:

May 26th - 2016
Banding day

Two bandings again today, back to back,, William Osler this morning at 10am and Duncan Mills this afternoon at 3pm! :-)

Despite the not so good news this morning at the William Osler nest site, we still have two very healthy hatchlings that were very feisty and in fine form!
A big thank you to Todd and his security team, and to the William Osler Hospital for all of their support, we were successful in banding two very healthy peregrine hatchlings that were very feisty and in fine form!!

It might appear with all of the recent activity in the form of competition from other peregrines trying to take over the William Osler nest site, (and there has been some very aggressive squabbling among the peregrines), two of the hatchlings have succumb to the fighting among the adult peregrines and have been killed. Sadly, we had to pull two dead hatchlings out of the nest tray. The two dead hatchlings were every bit as large as the two surviving siblings, and it appears that their demise has been a very recent happening indeed!

The security staff that have been monitoring the CPF nest camera on our in-house live monitor said that all four hatchlings were all quite alive and well 2 days earlier (as of last Tuesday May 24th), so this has been a very recent event!

The two surviving hatchlings were very closely examined for any signs of illness and other injuries and were deemed by all to be quite fine!

We were fortunate to have both Mark Heaton from the OMNRF and Kim Fernie from the Environment Canada and the Canadian Wildlife service with us today to get a second and third opinion on the two surviving hatchlings. The deceased bodies were removed from the nest tray and handed off to the Mark and Kim. Given the high heat and humidity, the deceased hatchlings were not in the greatest shape.

Peregrines do not cannibalize themselves nor do they typically feed their dead to their other hatchlings as some other birds of prey do (as with Bald eagles in particular),, and unfortunately the two deceased hatchlings were way too large and too heavy for the resident adult female to remove them from the nest,,,, which would be quite typical as we have documented via the live cameras over the past 20 years.

With well over 600 peregrine hatchlings having gone through our hands in the past 20 years from nest sites all over Ontario, (excluding that of the 100 plus hacked out and fostered peregrines that we parented, raised and released back to the wild through our hack release and satellite tracking programs), I can assure all that the two surviving hatchlings are very healthy indeed!!!

That being said,, we can not although do much about the territorial squabbling between the resident adults and the other peregrine intruders that have obviously caused the problems in the first place,, as they themselves must work out these problems on their own. We can only do so much. We will although be monitoring the nest site as closely as possible.

The two surviving hatchlings at we banded,, one male and one female were in fine form,,

- a male, weighing in at 690 grams, 23 days old, Black banded 05 over Y with Blue tape. (This is an older band, and the reason why it is out of sequence and different from all of the other bands being used this season).
- a huge female,, weighing in 985 grams, Black banded S over 53 with Red tape

We are waiting for the William Osler staff to provide us with names for the two hatchlings, and will post them as soon as we have the names.

The two hatchlings were successfully banded and returned back to the nest ledge with the resident adult female “in waiting� on the nest tray!!!

Please bear with us with regards to photos, as we have MANY photos to go through from the two bandings today. We are out on the road and in the field again all day today and not able to get much office and computer / internet time. Its that time of year again!!!!

Stay tuned…….

Little trouble makers!

They look quite pleased with themselves    DC is going to have his hands full with '3 girls'!  No wonder he's been so subdued this year - it's like Beauty x 4 to keep him in line now! 

Just woke up and brought up the cam before anything else..and yay!!!   Woohoo!!! 

Probably both of them are the dads.  I've watched him and he's in the box a lot with the babies and shows interest in them.  Most times when new males come in and there are kids, they don't hurt them but they don't pay much attention to them either.  Quest seems to trust him with the kids too.

eh?  They were both sunbathing at noon today and no one was on eggs.  I could see 2 eggs and no pips at the time.  I got scaps of the eggs. Unless the hidden one hatched 

First hatch for Ralphie and Alice!! 

!! 2 Healthy Boys for MEC
May 20, 2016 - Mississauga - Executive Centre
Marion Nash Reports:

Banding Day at Mississauga Executive Centre went very well. There are 2 very healthy boys this year. Mark and Vern from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests weighed and banded the chicks and had 2 helpers Joseph and Sally who gave each chick a little drink of water and put coloured tape on the silver band to help the falcon watchers easily identify each bird during the fledge watch. below are the band numbers, weights and names for each,

635 grams Y over 23 with blue tape named Josally-for Joseph and Sally
635 grams Y over 24 with Red Tape named Olimar- for Olivia and Maria

Thanks go out to Colliers and MEC Security for all their support and to Mark and Vern from The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests for their valued commitment to the protection of this species.

!!! 4 Chicks Successfully Banded Today :-)
May 20, 2016 - Etobicoke - Sun Life Centre
Marion Nash Reports:

May 20th 2016

Another successful banding at Bloor and Islington Center. Although O’Conner was back to original self the terror or Etobicoke ,Cathy Smith from CPF and the brave young men from Skyreach Window Washing
took the lick-en from her in stride as they extracted the chicks from the nest for banding. Thanks so much to you all for a job well done!

This year there are 3 girls and 1 boy and all were very healthy and feisty like their mom.

We had a great turn out of viewers from the local community, building tenants and a group of students from Spruce Court Public School.

Mark Heaton and Tina Hassannia from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests weighed and banded the chicks and had 2 young helpers from Spruce Court school who gave each chick a drink of water and placed coloured tape on the silver band. The coloured tape will help the falcon watch team identify at distance each bird during the fledge watch.

The students from spruce Court School got to name 3 of the chicks this year and came up with Sprucer, Oakley and Cheemung and the 4th was named Maverick by Mark Heaton’s assistant Tina. Below is the band information and weights.

745 grams female named Maverick S over 50 with White Tape
535 grams male named Sprucer Y over 21 with Blue Tape
720 grams female named Oakley with Red Tape
720 grams female named Cheemung with Yellow Tape

Once again we would like to thank Building Management CBRE Canada and the wonderful security staff for all their support and as always Mark Heaton of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests for being there for the birds and the community.

I have screen shots from as late as 6 days ago of Erin laying behind the pillar on the cam ledge...unless there is a new female and she was just practicing.  From that far it's hard to ID a bird but she laid there for an hour or so like Erin usually does and 2 days before that she was laying in her usual sun spot at the very far end.  This morning Stormin came in for a quick visit and then he was gone.

So we'll see, can't ever say 'never' where falcons are concerned because soon as you think you have them figured out they do something you don't expect.

Happy Birthday Carol, hope you have a fabulous day