Transmitter falcons

[Donna]

I put this here so as not to take up space on the Quest thread.

Trio of fledglings born at U of A falcon nest

By July 4, 2005

The stork has paid a visit to the University of Alberta's falcon family, delivering three bundles of joy to the nest atop the Clinical Sciences Building.

Since the clutch hatched on June 24, the falcon pair has been parenting three fledglings. And the family's doing very well, according to former U of A renewable resources lecturer and falconer Dr. Alastair Franke, who is part of a team working to help the university's peregrine falcons.

"The parents are excellent - they're so attentive. It's quite encouraging to watch a pair of falcons that are that attentive to their young," he said. Franke noted that the pair will often use their wings to draw the young into the shade and out of the harsh mid-morning sunlight, and that the male is providing an ample amount of prey for the large family.

"Just like any animal, some individuals are better parents than others. And that occurs in falcons as well, particularly if you have inexperienced birds - they're not quite sure what to do. We've got a couple of adults here who look like they know exactly what they're doing."

In past years, hatchery-laid falcon eggs have been placed in the nest by Alberta Fish and Wildlife for falcon pairs to raise as their own in an effort to help increase the Alberta peregrine population, as the falcons remain a threatened species in North America. But this year, the U of A pair mated to produce offspring in spite of possible hindrances, like the satellite transmitter strapped to the female, or nearby construction activity.

"We saw copulations occurring on the crane near Clinical Sciences as it was moving," Franke noted. "There wasn't any indication that the construction activity has been a problem for those birds."

But the more unusual part of this tale, says Franke, is the fact that the mother of the clutch is wearing a satellite transmitter and being followed by a webcam simultaneously, something that has occurred only a couple of times in the world. Because of this, the website is getting a number of hits from American and European viewers, and many have e-mailed questions about the history of the U of A peregrines.

This spring, the U of A's Facilities Management department, in collaboration with the Environmental Coordination Office of Students (ECOS) and Alberta Fish and Wildlife, installed a webcam inside the nest box on the Clinical Sciences Building, as well as on an adjacent building. The camera is refreshing every few seconds on a special website, allowing scientists and the public to get a closer look at the falcons.

"The idea behind the webcam was to raise the profile of the birds and also from a conservation standpoint, to raise awareness, and we seem to be doing that even without advertising the site," said Geoff Hurly, associate director of operations and energy management.

Over the next month, viewers can expect to see the chicks grow at a tremendous rate, said Gordon Court, a wildlife biologist with Alberta Fish and Wildlife.

"In only a month or so, they'll go from these little balls of fluff to flying beasts in that period of time. Every time you tune into the webcam you'll see some change there," he said.

"The young will spend a lot of time preening and moving from a down-filled ball to a mature-looking bird. You'll see a lot of time spent cleaning themselves up and getting rid of the shafts of all of the feathers, and you'll see them blossom as birds in the next little while."

[carly]

This is Miss Edmonton, aka Transmitter Girl that I mentioned, she was also known as Miss Homeless as she lost this nest site to another female a few years ago when she started coming home later and later in the season.  This is her first year without the transmitter since they put it on her.

Gord Court is one of the most knowledgeable biologists on pefa's in Canada.  He's also one of the most humble.  This week he placed 2 eyases (1 from the Bell Tower if you watch that cam) into the nest of the Red Deer falcons that were incubating eggs for something like 54 days.  He took two little males from other nest sites where they were born later and not able to compete for food amongst their older siblings and gave them the opportunity to be cared for by a pair that seemed desperate for offspring - he's done this many times in the past at other sites.   I've read several of his articles that are posted in top science magazines and blogs and boy were they imformative.  He was also involved in the orginal Wainwright project to help repopulate the species in Canada.  He's studied them in the wild and in urban centres.  

I was introduced to his work through Bev (yes the Bev that posts here sometimes) as she knows him personally and helps him out with the Clinical Sciences site and Miss Edmonton's new site - Weber and several others.  

I know out on the East Coast of Canada in the Maritimes, many years ago they also had a transmitter project but I dont' know what the outcome was, if any ever reproduced successfully.

[Donna]

K so she was before Quest. I had a hard time looking for Transmitter Falcons a while ago. Hard to find on the net. So much info out there but usually all brings me back to Quest and poor "Homeless".  Which nest had the 2 transmitter falcons at one time, was this Alberta? I know I posted it a while ago but for the life of me, I can't find it.

[carly]

K so she was before Quest. I had a hard time looking for Transmitter Falcons a while ago. Hard to find on the net. So much info out there but usually all brings me back to Quest and poor "Homeless".  Which nest had the 2 transmitter falcons at one time, was this Alberta? I know I posted it a while ago but for the life of me, I can't find it.

Yes at the Genesee Power Plant in Alberta, female (hers fell off) and male's who was just removed a few weeks ago as he arrived home late the past 2 years and the female had laid eggs with a new male.  He chased off both males and is now raising 1 eyases.  Only 1 of the eggs hatched and it is the offspring of the other males - Gord took the eggs out to incubate them offsite as the territorial dispute was still on going and he was afraid the eggs would be damaged so he replaced them with dummy eggs.  He then returned them to the nest a few weeks ago and 1 lone eyases hatched.  Hopefully next year the male will come home on time, the first year these two had a successful nest without issue.

Donna, also look here - this is the Artic Pefa project site called Southern Cross.  It was done out of Washington and if you dig deep into the site there are some very interesting observations.  For example, one year they found a 'pair' that had migrated together, another year a female and her offspring were found in Chile together and she was stil providing food for it.  Quite fascinating!  The team travels to Chile and bands the faclons down there!

http://www.frg.org/SC_PEFA.htm

[Donna]

This is very interesting Carly. Lots to read. I like where they were trapping to try and tag a female but got 5 males in a row. Males are usually hard to trap. The 6th was a female, named Island Girl. I'm still reading. Thanks.

[margaret]

Donna and Carly - thanks for posting all the interesting information on transmitter falcons.  Lots to read.
Lots to look at atht Falcon Research website.

So Quest is not the first.   

How did they catch Miss Edmonton in order to remove the transmitter?   I wonder if that will have occur with Quest.

[carly]

Alot of the nestboxes out West have have sliding walls so when the falcon goes into the box they quickly lower the front door and open the back and remove the transmitter.

It was done on cam with the Genesee male actually which is how we know- well we saw the door go down with him (and his transmitter on) in the box and when it came back up 5 minutes later his transmitter was gone 

There are other ways however I've been told to refrain from publicly discussing those methods so as not to encourage any unsavory types that may be lurking around and looking for info like that.  Given that we are reading of people shooting pefa's in the news, I can understand why that information needs to be kept private.  Sadly not everyone is like us and has their best interests at heart.