When Utica’s resident peregrine falcon couple failed to produce a viable egg last summer, local observers hoped the next mating season would bring them better luck.
Instead, the opposite seems to be true.
Maya, the female falcon, has been seen sitting at her M&T Gold Dome Bank nesting site for several weeks. But the last confirmed sighting of her mate, Tor, was nearly two months ago, Spring Farm CARES naturalist Matthew Perry said.
It may be that he’s met an untimely end.
“I’m starting to lean toward the thought that he is gone,” said Perry, who received an unconfirmed report several weeks ago that Tor may have crashed into a Genesee Street window and been injured.
Peregrine falcons typically mate for life and this particular couple is nonmigratory, so it’s unusual that Tor would be missing for so long, Perry said.
Some unofficial falcon watchers believe they’ve seen him since February, however.
“It’s possible he is still alive but isn’t hanging around yet,” Perry said. “We have to remember that this particular pair mated very late.”
The falcons, who have nested unsuccessfully on the bank building for two years, laid their first egg on June 4, 2008, and their second on June 6, 2009, Perry said. In between the two seasons, state Department of Environmental Conservation officials installed a gravel-filled nesting box on the bank’s roof ledge and removed pigeon wire to make it more hospitable for the couple.
Perry said Tor’s death would not necessarily put an end to Maya’s hopes of becoming a mother, however.
“If Tor is gone, she may hook up with another male coming through the area,” he said. “There was a record number of peregrines that hatched last year in the state. That means there are a lot of peregrines that don’t have a territory that will be in the general area of New York state.”
He added that Maya finding “a new man” would be the clearest indication that Tor has died. If she just leaves the nest in coming weeks, it could mean that she’s single again or that the couple simply found a new nesting site somewhere else.
Both birds were seen together in the city as recently as mid-December, Perry said.
Maya and Tor, the Peregrine falcon pair that nests in downtown Utica, are shown here last year while they were incubating an egg. As of Tuesday, Tor had not been seen since February, and some watchers are concerned he may have died.
