With all the excitement around the hatchings it’s easy to forget that we have other subjects to update. Quest has been zipping all over the north shore of Lake Ontario this month. Yesterday it looks like she headed north for a day trip up to Georgian Bay. She shows no signs of slowing down, or settling down either.

Quest closed out April near her familiar stomping ground, but in the first part of May she’s been moving around. Her path over the past ten days or so has followed Highway 401 for the most part. She’s been as far to the northeast as Cornwall on the outskirts of Montreal, and as far westward as Ajax, near Toronto. In between it looks like she may have spent a couple of days at the Thousand Islands Bridge.

Since she’s showing no sign of settling into a territory it’s a fair bet she hasn’t attracted a mate. Apparently the life of a bachelorette suits Quest just fine for now.

We’ve been hoping that Quest might find herself a mate and settle into a territory somewhere, but she seems to have other plans. If the transmitter data are any guide, it looks like she’s quite content to keep on the move.

On April 16^th she crossed the border into New York, spending some time at the Kintigh Power plant in Somerset, about an hour west of Rochester. This coal-fired plant has a very tall smokestack that would make an excellent perch for a Peregrine.

Then on the 19^th we heard from our friend Doug over at the Archer Daniels Midland plant in Port Colborne, Ontario, that they spotted a falcon wearing a transmitter in their nest box. You’ll remember that this was the home of Freedom, Mariah and Kaver’s son from 2002. It’s also where Archer was hatched in 2006. Archer’s parents are no longer at the ADM plant, which is home to a new pair of Peregrines, but Doug’s note intrigued us. Could this transmitter-wearing falcon be Quest?

Unfortunately the satellite data didn’t cooperate with us very much. On April 18 Quest was about 20 miles west of Port Colborne. But on the 19^th we didn’t receive any data at all, and the next day She’d flown back east across the lake, ending up near Sacket’s Harbor on the US side of the international border.

It’s looking more and more like she’s not ready to find a permanent territory of her own just yet. Quest is certainly living up to the best characteristics of her species. In fact, she’s spent so much of her adult life moving around that we decided to commemorate her travels with a line of Quest World Tour apparel and gear!

The Quest World Tour items feature our favorite cyber-falcon with her satellite transmitter on the front. On the back you’ll find a list of all the places she’s visited over the past couple of years. And for those who don’t like back-printed clothing, we’ve got Quest Satellite gear that just includes the front image.

So if you’re like us, and you can’t remember where Quest has traveled, just click on over to the Rochester Falconcam store at Zazzle and pick up a shirt, tote bag or mug! You’ll get a great keepsake and you’ll be helping to keep the Rochester Falconcam operating.

Quest's movements from April 4-13

Quest continued her restless movements over the past week, covering several hundred miles. She went as far east as Portland, Maine, and as far west as Toronto. She’s covered two Canadian provinces (Ontario & Quebec) and two states (Maine and Vermont) in the US.

That’s quite a road trip for our plucky Peregrine. There’s no indication that she’s about to settle down, though she has returned to the Lennox power station a few times during April. It could be that she’s on the hunt for a mate, or maybe she’s just infected with a bad case of wanderlust. Trying to understand all of her behavior based only on where she’s going (or where she’s been, depending on how you look at it), is a bit of a murky task. Still, this glimpse into her life is welcome, however limited it might be.

Quest spent the last days of March near Prince Edward County, but in April she took a different path.  First she went north, then she turned south-east.  Her movements over the past few days have been in nearly a straight line.  She’s been covering a lot of ground and it looks like she could be headed for the coast of Maine.

Quest got to enjoy the unseasonably warm weather that affected the northeast portions of North America over the weekend.  Her transmitter’s temperature sensor recorded a reading as high as 31°C on the 3^rd of April. So she’s definitely moving around a lot. It’s likely that means she hasn’t attracted a mate, though of course we can’t say that for sure. We’ll just have to keep watching to see where she ends up.

We have a flurry of information to bring you regarding Mariah and Kaver’s offspring, so here we go!

Seneca and Cheyenne
We begin with some really terrific news. Our colleagues at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History have had a falconcam of their own focused on the pair at the Terminal Tower for many years. Now it appears they have another pair in town. Our very own Seneca from 2008 appears to have displaced another female named Ely and taken over a nest site on the Brookpark Road Bridge just outside of Cleveland! Not only that, but she has a mate named Cheynne. He was also hatched in 2008 from a nest in nearby Akron, Ohio.  It hasn’t escaped our notice that both of these falcons carry the name of a Native American tribe.  What a wonderful coincidence!

This news is pretty recent; Seneca was only discovered a couple of days ago by one of the local watchers named Kim. She contacted Chris and Chad Saladin, who’ve been longtime observers (and extraordinary photographers) of the Cleveland area falcons. They were able to read her band and quickly make an ID. Today they published a bunch of photos of Cheyenne and Seneca mating, as well as some solo pictures of each. Here are a couple of Seneca:

Seneca at Brookpark Road Bridge near Cleveland, OH

Seneca Flying Near Brookpark Road Bridge

Isn’t she gorgeous? Our sincere thanks go out to Chris and Chad for the excellent pictures, and to Kim for finding Seneca. You can follow Seneca and Cheyenne as they build their new family on the Seneca thread in our Forum.

Rhea Mae and Tiago

Rhea Mae & Tiago's First Egg of 2010

Rhea Mae and Tiago have laid their first egg at their nest box on the Sheraton Hotel in midtown Toronto.  According to watcher Linda Woods over at the Canadian Peregrine Foundation:

Rhea [Mae] had been spending many nights sitting at the nest ledge. But last night she was on the nest tray. After dark she climbed into the tray and laid down. This morning, egg # 1!

It looks like 2010 will be another productive year for Rhea Mae, Mariah’s daughter from 2006. You can follow all the news about her at the Rhea Mae thread in our Forum.

Quest

Quest has had one of her busiest weeks yet, covering several hundred miles from as far north as Ottawa and Montreal, down south to Lake Erie.  In between she spent a few days at her familiar hunting grounds near the Lennox Power station and at Prince Edward Point.  It’s anyone’s guess as to where Quest will settle down, if she ever decides to stop globetrotting, that is!

The past few days have found Quest continuing her westward move. She spent a couple of days in Port Colborne, in pretty close proximity to the Archer Daniels Midland mill where Freedom had been the resident male until 2009. Then yesterday he headed north to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton.

Of course, Hamilton has a resident Peregrine pair, Madame X and Surge. According to Hamilton resident and Falconcam fan David Bevan, Madame X is very territorial. Hopefully Quest won’t get herself into any trouble while she’s touring along the west end of Lake Ontario!

Within the past few days Quest has expanded her travel range, heading north on the 6^th into Ontario’s countryside near Clyde Forks and the Lanark Highlands. On the 8^th it was back to Prince Edward Point, only to journey west following Highway 401 into Toronto. The evening of the 9^th showed her at what appears to be a large retail building in the 1100 block of Leslie Street, just north of Eglinton Ave East, and adjacent to the well wooded Willet Creek Park.

Maybe she’s just there for a visit, or it could be that she’s looking for a stylish new car. After all, Parkview BMW is just down the street…

Continuing her trend from the end of February, Quest has been spending her days moving between Prince Edward Point and southeastern Ontario. The early days of March provided clear weather with a lot of data points. The information from the transmitter’s temperature sensor shows that Quest is having no trouble keeping warm. And with the end of winter coming, it will be interesting to see whether she stays at PEPBO, moves back to Lennox, or strikes out in a new direction. She’s also fully adult now, so she ought to be looking for a mate as well. Sitting on a major migration route as she is, it seems likely that she’ll attract the attention of a Peregrine tiercel before too long.

Quest continues her stay at the Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory, with a couple of side trips northeast to the mainland. Location data have been a little spotty. Sometimes we only get one reading in a day, and that one may not be very good, so you’ll see a couple of gaps. On the positive side, the temperature sensor on her transmitter shows that she’s keeping warm as we move into the heart of winter.

The satellite images around the bird observatory are not extremely detailed, but it seems like there must be some high structure in the area (maybe a cell phone or radio tower?) It looks like there’s some kind of artificial structure nearby, but whether it provides a hunting perch for Quest is anyone’s guess. If anyone has visited the Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory, drop us a line! We’d love to get more infomation about the lay of the land.