Good night Beauty-see you tomorrow!

Just spotted this on ~sage~'s Facebook page...

DEC reports: We received a band report today: someone reported seeing "Harry (Potter)" from UB in Hamilton, Ontario on 3/13/2011. Good to know he's out there doing well! Unfortunately, no details in these reports, just a band number, location and date.

Photos will be a nice addition to the final glossary.  For now, as the chatter is about KP, the stills, the ORB etc., a picture of the primary buildings & structures the watchers are referring to.  Original photo by MAK...

If nothing else, she's got a good appetite!

Sleeping Beauty

Beauty did lay "Sophie" on April 1st I was thinking she did it for me 

But maybe she was playing an April Fool Joke on all of us.... what ya think 

Only time will tell!

     

Missed them both this time...

Beauty at the NB from about 1:30 to 1:43 or so...

Rats!  Missed her again!

I think it would be good to start one place to discuss what we know and don't know about what's happening at Times Square and Kodak Park.  If the moderators think some of the other discussion would be better placed here, or this somewhere else, please feel free to move things around.

The question on all our minds today: How long will a peregrine egg remain viable if not incubated full time?  Facts that we know...

--In a "normal" schedule 5 egg clutch it can be 10-12 days before hard incubation begins.  In the rare 6 egg clutch, it will be longer.

--Then there's the story of Scout in Columbus OH 2008.  I can't tell the story better than Donna Daniels of the ODNR:

Well, after a delay of 8 days Scout has produced egg #2! Or, is it egg #1 after re-cycling? I can't say for sure which category it would technically fall into without looking through reference material but the bottom line is another egg was laid Sunday, April 6 about 7:13 p.m!! And, as of this morning Scout appears to be in incubating posture. Only by observation will we be able to determine if true incubation has started. If she does stay tight on the eggs from this point on we'll have to wait for a mate change to note if any additional eggs appear in the coming days. I know a lot of anxious Falconcam Fans are breathing a sigh of relief with the latest turn of events that put things toward more "normal" behavior that we have been anticipating! Let's hope that nesting goes full steam ahead from this point! And, if we end up with a hatch next month, it will be interesting to note if that 1st egg hatches or not. If you look close there is a difference in pigmentation of the two eggs--the first egg is much lighter and duller in appearance.

In the end, 4 total eggs were laid and all 4 eggs hatched and all 4 eyases were healthy and fledged normally.  And I will just point out a factoid-Scout was in her second breeding year that year.

--And the last for right now is the story of Tasha2, Louie & Dori at Gulf Towers Pittsburgh, PA 2010.

Tasha2 was the resident female with Louie.  She laid 2 eggs 03/17 & 03/19.  She was then displaced by Dori.  Bonding commenced and Dori laid 3 more eggs beginning 04/02.  Tasha's eggs were completely exposed and unincubated for +/- 3 weeks.  Dori didn't start incubating them at first-Louie kept pushing them into the pile & she'd push them out.  She finally did incubate all 5 and all 5 hatched.  One egg was noticeable for it's color-it was 50 days old when it hatched.  All 5 eyases were healthy. 

That's what I have for now. 

(OOPS!  must get back to work)

When it first happened, my thought was a shortage of tiercels as well.  However having seen Jack personally escort several tiercels out of the territory the past 2 years...I have to wonder if not's the 'territory' thing.  You know, the bigger the better...perhaps like some other male species...

Why does that bother me?  Maybe because Hamilton is/was a steel town, lots of industrial history   12 miles isn't far and easily if parents/offspring hunted in those areas, could they have been exposed to something that has affected their behaviour?  Chemicals perhaps in the environment/water?

What are the odds that three tiercels - are exhibiting rare behaviour and they all have a small radius in common in their backgrounds?  Maybe I'm grasping but it's bugging me....

The only thing I can say to that is industrial towns seem to be a fairly common scrape location.  Probably because in their heyday the industrialists built the tallest buildings with nooks & crannies.

I personally suspect the Canadian thing is more that the nest sites seem to me to be very close to each other.  Perhaps the tiercels are thinking-my territory is X, there's another scrape within X, so that's my scrape too. 

I've always had a tickle in my brain that KP might be too close to TS for comfortable separation of territory, visually if not by distance. 

I expect they can both see each other.  

In my conversations with one biologist - she told me that the females likely were only concerned with whether or not the tiercel provided for them and their offspring and defended the territory with them.  

ps: Thanks for tolerating all my musings, although I'm not a fan of the bigamous tiercel thing, I am curious as I have really no other situation to compare it with.  I know you aren't 100% yet as to what is going on here but if it turns out to be - at least we will have 2 documented situations and we can compare notes.

Thanks for the additional info, carly.  I was actually going to ask if you could do that since the info on CPF is in "soundbite" morsels.  Do you have any more details on Wind/Windwhistler/Mandy?  I know at first Windwhistler had another name, Spike, since it wasn't apparent it was the same bird.  And I know Tiago hatched to him & Mandy at King St.  Other than that, I'm a bit sketchy.

Believe me-we're ALL musing all the variables.  One other musing of mine is...was bigamy in wild PeFas common before the population was decimated?  Are we seeing "normal" behavior for a healthy population?  

@BC-I think I might have read somewhere that there are more females than males. Perhaps someone else has more info at their fingertips.

As the Scrape Turns...at FalconCrest!

Could also be some reproductive issues with one of the two.  Archer is a migrating bird, if he goes to South America - they still use DDT quite heavily in some areas down there...or he could have been down in the Gulf and been affected by the spill.  

 It's too bad you didn't have access to where the other female is...could identify if it's Archer that is there and see if she's having any luck with eggs or if the situation is similar.

Also can't help but wonder if it's not stress on Beauty's part, can't be easy to wait months for your mate to come home and have to potentially share him.  Since it's not a common situation, I can't help but wonder if that's because not all females will tolerate it so easily.  I really feel for Beauty, she's such a beautiful and strong falcon.  She expends alot of energy on her own all winter defending and holding the site, even though falcons are strong - it can't be easy.

I wish there were some way to even make an educated guess on whether there is some environmental issue.  More likely just a stress reaction on Beauty's part, though what the exact stressor actually is is anyone's guess.  Is Archer actually 2 timing?  Could he be trying to keep Lady Pefa away from downtown?  Has she (LP) been visiting downtown or can Beauty see her from high up on TS and is that the actual stressor?  Or something we haven't even thought of.  I wish we knew.

Archer? above the nestbox


Archer in the nest box

I can't answer all your questions about the viability of the egg and history of this happening before.  Ei has posted quite a bit about this over the last couple days.  I'm sure she has more information to share.      Every situation is different.

Indeed, I have done some research, but need to get to work now.  I'll try to sneak in during the day & post it.  If not, as soon as I get home.

I have an off the wall question. Is there anyway that first egg could be Mr T's?



I'm a little worried I lost a bird to egg binding. Do falcons have this problem?

Not likely Mr. T's egg-the timing was right for it to be Archer's.

This was actually answered on the Norfolk eagle chat by a biologist-he'd never heard of a case of egg binding in raptors.