Mariah and Kaver seem to be hard at work preparing the nest for the laying of eggs. If Mariah sticks to her traditional schedule her first egg should come in the next 7 to 10 days. In the meantime, both birds have been busy in the nest box, excavating a bowl-shaped depression called a “scrape” in the gravel substrate. They’re enlarging the scrape that was there last year. Here are a pair of pictures that show the recent work.
     

If you look closely at these two pictures, you’ll see that the shape of the scrape has changed. The picture on the right shows new activity. The depression in the gravel from last year has been enlarged by Mariah and Kaver. They “scrape” out the material by settling into the depression and pushing the gravel out behind them with their feet.

Now you know why it’s called a scrape.

UPDATE! The Falconcam’s high-resolution Main Camera caught this humorous picture of Kaver in the act! You can see him laying in the depression and pushing the stones out behind him. He kind of looks like a baseball player sliding for home, doesn’t he?

Here’s another picture of Kaver pushing the stones out behind him with his feet…

Sometimes the falcons’ excavation uncovers something interesting. Observant viewers will note the round, reddish brown object near the back edge of the scrape. You could be forgiven for thinking that’s an egg. We thought so too on first glance, but Mariah hasn’t exhibited any egg-laying behavior yet, such as becoming lethargic or gravid, nor has she spent long periods crouched in the scrape. When she does begin her egg laying behavior we’ll be sure to let you know.

Linn, Mariah’s daughter from last year’s brood, has been spending her time in Scarborough, Ontario Canada, an eastern suburb of Toronto. She has found a nest box all her own there, and just needs to attract a mate. From our friends at the Canadian Peregrine Foundation comes this report yesterday, filed by one of their volunteer watchers, Big Frank:

…A quick note about Linn… Mark and Marion Nash,as well as Bruce Massey all have reported several recent sightings of Linn, on and around the Bell Building. We’ve had just terrible weather for February and one of the snowiest Marches in Toronto history,but your girl has weathered [it] well and is doing fine. Mid-March brings spring migration to a beginning, so hopefully some passing male will notice her.

BIGFRANK

Thanks Big Frank! It’s really gratifying to see Mariah and Kaver’s offspring thriving. It’s probably too soon for Linn to lay viable eggs– that doesn’t usually happen until their second year after hatching, but if she can attract a mate and continue to defend her nest box against competitors, she’ll be in a great position to begin a family of her own in 2009. We’ll keep watching and let you know when we receive more news!

-Jess

After the long cold winter, we were really looking forward to starting up the Falconcam for another year. Kaver was his usual punctual self, showing up right on time.

     

Falconcam team member Jim Pisello took advantage of today’s above-freezing temperatures to give the camera lenses a quick cleaning. The result of his work can be seen in these two photos. The one on the left is the view before cleaning– not bad, but there are some smudges visible. The one on the right is nice and clear.

Here he is reaching into the nest box to scrub the camera lenses. Jim reports that Mariah defended her territory with her customary fierceness, and even Kaver came in close this time. Jim kept his head down and spent only enough time outside to wipe the dirt from each of the five cameras. No sooner did he leave the nest box area than Mariah landed on top of Camera 1, where she spent much of the afternoon. While he was there though, he couldn’t resist taking a few pictures. Here’s one of Mariah on an aggressive approach.

Now we’re all waiting for egg laying to begin. We probably have a few weeks yet. Look for Mariah to lay her first eggs at the end of March and in the first week of April.

How many eggs will she lay this year? It’s hard to say. She surprised us two years ago with six eggs, a record for her and for Peregrines in New York State. Last year Mariah laid five, but you may recall that one of them mysteriously disappeared, leaving only four to hatch.

So what happens in 2008 is anyone’s guess. Want to be a Peregrine Prognosticator? Leave a comment and let us know how many eggs you think she’ll lay!

-Jess

Only a day after returning to Rochester, Kaver and Mariah are already exhibiting the behaviors of a courting couple. As we put the final touches on the Rochester Falconcam website in anticipation of this year’s launch, our cameras caught our favorite falcons in a typical bowing pose that is part of the Peregrine’s courtship ritual. If we could hear inside the nest box, the falcons would be ee-chupping at each other as they bowed back and forth.

Here’s a picture that illustrates another courtship behavior. Kaver has just caught some prey, and you can see that he has presented it to Mariah. This gift of food demonstrates his ability as a provider for his family. Those of you who can get downtown are likely to see the two of them flying together, with Kaver performing aerial manuevers to show off his flying prowess. Taken together these activities are meant to display his fitness as a mate for Mariah. For these two who are entering their seventh year together, the courtship activity also reinforces their pair bond after months of separation.

We here at the Rochester Falconcam are sure that all our dedicated local watchers will be on the lookout for mating behavior, which should begin pretty soon. In the meantime if you want to learn more about Peregrine courtship, check out this post from last year.

-Jess

Great news from longtime watcher and Falconcam fan Larry O’Heron, who witnessed Kaver’s return to the nest box this morning following his winter migration! The picture above, captured this morning by the Falconcam cameras, shows Kaver and Mariah in a typical courtship “bowing pose”, and Larry reported hearing the characteristic ee-chupping sounds of courting Peregrines. It seems that Mariah and Kaver are busy re-establishing their pair bond.

We’re ecstatic to see our favorite falcons back together for another year, and the Rochester Falconcam team is very excited to see that 2008 is off to a great start! Now that Kaver has returned, you can look forward to the cameras coming back on very soon.

Last, but not least, a huge Thank-you to Larry and to all of our “snowbirds” who’ve kept an eye on the nest box throughout the cold months of winter.

-Jess

It’s getting close to the time when we’ll launch the 2008 Rochester Falconcam! While we wait, we hope you’ll enjoy this slideshow of terrific photos taken by our fledge watchers and posted in our 2007 Gallery at Imprints.

Our friends at Kodak have introduced a new website that makes it easy to create dynamic slideshows like this one from any KodakGallery album (We created one from the Freedom 2005 album too). You can visit all of the Rochester Falconcam Slideshows, or try it out for yourself!

February is nearly here, which means the 2008 Rochester Falconcam season is only a few weeks away! Last Friday, team members “Fal-Kenn” Martinez and Jim Pisello braved bitter cold, whipping winds, and the wrath of Mariah– as seen in the dramatic photo above– to check out the cameras and get them ready for their appointed task of bringing the Rochester Falconcam to fans the world over.

The work was far from straightforward. The team had to fight the weather while diagnosing a nagging problem that kept Camera 1 from getting power. Not only that, during their survey Kenn and Jim discovered that last year’s eyases had nibbled at one of the network cables which needed to have its insulation replaced. Another challenge was that over the months since last summer the wind had actually twisted Camera 1 around it’s mounting arm. It took some delicate tapping with a long piece of wood to get it back into place.

And then there was Mariah. She took turns circling and diving, and both Kenn and Jim had to keep ducking every time she passed by. Luckily she took a couple of breaks, which gave the two men some time to work without having to worry about getting bonked on the head! They both brought their cameras and they took a few moments to grab some pictures of Mariah as she flew close by.

It took some doing, but with a little ingenuity, a lot of duct tape, and a couple hours’ work, the cameras sprang to life! Kenn and Jim gathered their tools and retreated to the warmth of the Kodak Tower after a job well done.

The cameras will need a final cleaning before the season begins around the middle of March, but that will have to wait for better weather. In the meantime the Rochester Falconcam team will be hard at work to make sure that 2008 will be a season to remember!

-Jess

Photos used by kind permission of the Canadian Peregrine Foundation

Mark Nash has sent us some new pictures of the hack box that the CPF erected on the roof of the Scarborough Bell building. It is this box, converted to a spacious artificial scrape, that Linn has taken to defending over the past couple of weeks. The CPF has high hopes that Linn will settle there permanently, as he explains in his most recent note.

We have been given permission to keep the hack box up on the roof for just this very purpose – (in an effort to
attract either Lawrie and Ruben back to the site), or another interested Pefa [shorthand for Peregrine falcon] looking for a good location.

This picture gives a good idea of the Bell building’s height and surroundings. It looks like it should make a good nesting location, and the lack of other tall buildings nearby ought to make it easier for watchers to keep an eye on Linn if she takes up permanent residence.

I have attached some photos of the hack box that we built for the orphaned Pefa chicks that we hacked out this past summer from the Bell building.

I have removed the bars from the hack box, added more pea gravel, and we cleaned the old debris out of the box. While it was designed to be a “hack box”, it appears that Linn is most interested in it, as she has been observed on both the porch and upper roof of the box on several occasions over the past two weeks. She has been protecting the site with some intensity!

Fingers crossed!!

Sincerely
Mark Nash
Director
The Canadian Peregrine Foundation
www.peregrine-foundation.ca

So, it looks like Linn may be the recipient of a converted nursery. We can’t think of a better use for this prime piece of raptor real estate! Like Mark, we’re keeping our fingers crossed here at the Rochester Falconcam.

-Jess

Photos courtesy of Jim Pisello

Our friends at the Canadian Peregrine Foundation have delivered some terrific news. Linn, last of the 2007 offspring to fledge, has been identified by her leg band defending a possible nesting site in Scarborough, Ontario Canada! Here’s the information we just received from Mark Nash of the CPF:

Hello All,
We have finally been able to get a positive identification on one of the two Pefa’s that have been calling this neck of the woods home for the past months. On Dec. 31st/2007, one of the CPF volunteers – Bruce Massey’s efforts paid off, and he was able to positively confirm the band number of the Pefa now calling the Bell building at Pharmacy and Eglinton her turf. This is the same building that we used for this past summers hack of four orphaned peregrine chicks that came to us from Quebec.

It is confirmed that we have a juvenile female – 91 over V – holding (and protecting) this territory, and its Linn from Rochester 2007!! She still [has] her red tape over the Silver USFW band.

Linn has been exhibiting very territorial behavior – (as she has been observed defending the Bell building on three different occasions over the past two weeks) while chasing off the local red-tails as they fly over and around of the Bell building.

She can be seen regularly roosting on the Bell building, – next to the hack box, and seems to be calling the building her own – (at least for the time being). She is no longer is being observed on the Water storage tank at Warden and Eglinton, as we pass both these places daily as we go into the CPF head office.

Sadly, we have not seen the adult male that was hanging around with her when she was roosting on the Water storage tank.

Sincerely,

Mark Nash

Director

The Canadian Peregrine Foundation

When last we saw Linn, she was on the move west of Rochester at the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge. It looks like she was just waiting to make a right hand turn for a northerly flight over Lake Ontario. We’re grateful to Mark and all the dedicated staff at CPF for their work, and we’re looking forward to hearing more about Linn in the coming months!

-Jess

      
Photos courtesy of Tom Hoehn at Eastman Kodak Co.

Mariah and Kaver’s next set of offspring will have fewer perching options when they take their fledging flights in 2008. That’s because the Rochester Gas and Electric company has begun removing two of the three smoke stacks at the BeeBee Station on Mill Street.

Since Mariah first began nesting on the Kodak tower, the smoke stacks at the defunct power plant have provided a high vantage overlooking the Genesee River gorge hundreds of feet below. A recent local news article claims that the smoke stacks are being removed to make way for a new substation.

As you can see in the pictures above, the demolition of the middle smoke stack– the tallest of the three– is going fast. The north stack will be taken down next, leaving only the southernmost “High Falls” smoke stack. Based on the current progression it looks like the demolition work will be completed before Mariah and Kaver return to the nest box this spring.

Though there will be fewer smoke stacks for the falcons to perch on, this change to the falcon’s eastern view should also make for a safer neighborhood. These smoke stacks have been places of danger for young falcons in the past as the inexperienced fliers overshoot their landings and fall down the tall chimneys. The lack of perching spots won’t be serious, though. There are still plenty of places for the fledglings to alight.

Other changes are coming to the neighborhood too. In 2008 construction will begin on an apartment complex located at the site of the current Kodak Visitor Parking lot on State Street. The townhouse style building will be three stories high, and it may serve as a new perching site for the fledglings. The Rochester Falconcam team has already contacted the Rochester Urban League to inform them of their unique neighbors and to work with them to help ensure the welfare of any falcons that may find their way to the roof of the complex. We’ll be sure to keep you updated about the changes happening near the Kodak tower as we move into the 2008 Rochester Falconcam season!

-Jess

The New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation has released their 2007 report on Peregrine falcon activity in the state. There was a substantial increase in the number of young this year along with a lot of other good news. Our thanks go to Barbara Loucks and all the staff at the DEC for twenty-five years of hard work helping to re-establish the Peregrine population in New York!

-Jess