Predatory love has conquered the skies above Michigan Avenue.
A pair of rare peregrine falcons has courted, mated and laid three eggs high atop the Jackson County Tower Building.
It is the first time peregrine falcons have bred in Jackson. Biologically speaking, it is a very big deal.
"We have fewer than 40 nesting sites for this species in Michigan," said Karen Cleveland, all-bird biologist for the state Department of Natural Resources and Environment.
"It is always exciting. It is never routine."
Assuming all goes well — which is no sure thing — the eggs will hatch in early May.
The mother, a Chicago-born bird named Big Red, and the still-unidentified father might soon rank as Jackson's most famous couple.
Call it a rooftop reality show.
Access to the nest site will be restricted, but progress of the falcon family is already shown live on the Internet (
http://96.61.192.55:8888/update.html) thanks to a Web camera installed by county workers.
Peregrine falcons are fierce predators that dive from the sky at up to 200 mph to catch prey in the air. They live on cliffs in the wild and on tall buildings and bridges in developed areas.
Falcons were seen on the Tower Building for years, but a DNRE investigation last summer determined the birds did not breed there.
"The building was unusually clean. There was not a lot of debris and gravel they could use for a nest," said Barb Baldinger, a peregrine falcon volunteer for the DNRE.
Wildlife experts suggested that humans provide pea gravel as a potential nesting material.
County maintenance workers followed the advice by putting down stones in four places in mid-March. Obviously, it worked quickly.
"It was like the last piece of the puzzle for the birds," Cleveland said. "They were ready."
And now a word about the bonds that unite the happy couple.
Falcons mate for life in the same way humans do: With varying success.
"If they have a pairing that works, usually they stick with it," Cleveland said. "But sometimes the male will have a girl on the side. Sometimes the female will go off with another male."
Jackson's falcon couple evidently hooked up last year, when the female stole the male from an older lady bird.
The band on her leg, read for the first time this week, identifies the female as Big Red. She hatched in 2008 at 125 S. Wacker Drive in Chicago.
Big Red is named after the nickname for a Chicago building. Her father is Joe, who came from Milwaukee, and her mother is Rahn, a native of Sheboygan, Wis.
Mother and father share child-rearing duties and take turns incubating the eggs.
"He relieves her so she can stretch her wings and have a meal," Baldinger said.
Not all eggs hatch, and not all baby birds survive. Peregrine falcon mothers typically have more success as they grow a little older.
"They tend not to do so hot at first," Cleveland said. "At 2 years old, she is like a teenage mother. It is a very positive sign that she had three eggs."
Roughly six weeks after they hatch, about the middle of June, baby birds will begin to jump on ledges and flap their wings.
Flying is instinctive, but baby birds must be taught to hunt. As training, parents often fly with the young and pass them food in mid-air.
That should make an unforgettable sight over downtown Jackson.
Young falcons will fly away in late summer or early fall.
"They will take off and we will probably never see them again," Cleveland said.
Big Red and her male likely will return to Jackson to produce new generations for years to come.
"You generally get the same birds coming back to the same places," said Cleveland.
Love, and gravel, conquers all.
