The envelope please (drum roll)…..

In third place with 63 votes was: Let’s change her name to honor her new home in Rochester.

Second place with 90 votes goes to: Let’s do a bit of both, give her a new name but combine it with her original one.

And the winner by an overwhelming majority, with 740 votes is: I like the name “Beauty” just as it is.

She was called Beauty by the watchers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and will continue to be called Beauty by the Rochester Falconcam community.

So the falcon watching continues in Rochester with our new pair now officially known as Archer and Beauty. Local watchers have reported seeing activity that resembles active incubation, but only Archer and Beauty know for sure.

Be sure to go into the Falcon Watch section to read the reports from the Rochester Watchers.

Mike Allen from the DEC forwarded this very positive update from Mariah’s caretakers.

“The doctor was here today and we got a very good look at Mariah’s wing and neck. All the scabs on her wing have dropped off and she has beautiful skin that has grown where they were. Her neck has a big scab that is all dried up and is ready to just fall off. The skin underneath looks great. Mariah’s feathers are in perfect condition. When the time comes, we expect it will be a wonderful release. I love these happy ending stories.”

Very good news!

Jess

View Quest Travels May 1 – 10 in a larger map
(Zoom in or out on the map by clicking the small + & – signs. Move it around by clicking your mouse button and dragging the map in the desired direction. Click the falcon icons for more information about each location.)

Quest showed complete disdain for citizenship and international borders over the past week or so as she hopped back and forth between Canada and the US. She spent the evening of the 1^st and the following morning in the small town of Wilson New York– coincidentally the home town of Falconcam team member Jim Pisello– before zipping over to Port Bruce, Ontario as she continued her westward trek.

On the fourth she was 185 miles (300 km) to the southwest in Napoleon, Ohio. Then, the boomerang part. She went back east, spending two days near Locust Point, a few miles east of Toledo, Ohio. On the 7^th she went northeast to Guelph, Ontario, about 45 miles (70 km) west of Toronto. Her most recent moves were north to the edge of Nottawasaga Bay, where she has spent the past couple of days.

It looks like Quest is restless, and she’s really taking the time to explore. Her activity is a good sign, and the fact that she’s moving long distances– sometimes hundreds of miles in a day– indicates that she’s fit and healthy. Keep watching along with us to see where she goes next!

View Quest Travels April 25 – 30 in a larger map
(Zoom in or out on the map by clicking the small + & – signs. Move it around by clicking your mouse button and dragging the map in the desired direction. Click the falcon icons for more information about each location.)

Intermittent problems with our email system have kept us from getting updates from Quest’s transmitter. So you can imagine our surprise when we started looking at the data earlier today and found that she left Cape Cod around April 27!

On seeing her location in Vermont, the first thing we did was to double-check the data. Sure enough, she’s was moving west. Our next thought was that she might be making a day trip. She’d done that in the past after all. We received no useful data for the 28^th, but the next day found her near Ausable Forks in New York’s vast Adirondack State Park. Then, the big leap, traveling over 300 miles (500 km) into Canada, where she was tracked near Allison, Ontario, about 50 miles (80 km) north of Toronto!

So it looks like she’s decided seven months in New England was enough. We’ll keep a close watch on her. Now that she’s on the move, she could end up anywhere!

Mike Allen sends this report from the Veterinary technician caring for Mariah:

The Dr. was here yesterday and checked her over thoroughly. Her wing web is healing nicely and the neck wound is totally scabbed over. We trimmed off some of that flap of loose skin in the top of the wing and it is healing underneath. He will be back next Tuesday and said after that Mariah will be ready to go into an outdoor mew to stretch her wings and exercise.

Yet more good news!

Photos courtesy of Kate St. John & Karen Lang at the Univ. of Pittsburgh

Kate St. John and Karen Lang served as Peregrine watchers at the University of Pittsburgh in 2007, the year that 81/V, aka Beauty, hatched and fledged. They had a webcam installed at the Cathedral of Learning (what a great name!), and they sent us some pictures of Beauty and her siblings along with their parents, Dorothy and Erie. We’ve compiled them into the slideshow you’re seeing above. It’s not possible to tell from the pictures which of the eyases is Beauty, but we thought you’d enjoy this look into her early life.

Over in Rochester, she and Archer are continuing the daily routine of a mated pair of Peregrines. Watchers report occasional coming and going from the ledge on the Midtown Plaza Tower at a particular location near the southeast corner where we believe a scrape may be located. There is not a lot of activity from the pair, though another mating episode was witnessed around 8:00PM a couple of days ago. This diminution of activity might indicate that egg laying has concluded and that brooding has begun, but it’s impossible to say for sure.

We say might, becuase we don’t have a way to directly observe the suspected scrape. We’re working on that though. We’ve presented a plan to the DEC for installing a camera above the nest location. We believe we can do this with little or no disturbance to the falcons, a primary consideration if indeed the falcons are sitting on eggs. This is all very preliminary though. In addition to the issues above we’d be working in a building that’s largely decommissioned. Cameras don’t work without power and network or internet connectivity, and we have to determine if those resources exist at the Midtown location, and whether we could use them if they do. We’ll post updates when we receive useful information to pass along.

In the meantime we’ll have to depend on our volunteer watchers for information about what’s happening at Midtown. As we receive reports from our watchers we’ll post them over at our FalconWatch Blog, so be sure to check over there from time to time!

Photo courtesy of Jim Pisello

Since we learned the new female falcon’s identity, there’s been a lot of discussion about whether we ought to keep the “unofficial” name her Pittsburgh watchers gave her (“Beauty”), pick an entirely new one, or do some combination of the two. We can’t say it hasn’t been fun reading all the opinions going back and forth, but we thought we’d better try to settle the issue once and for all.

Rather than leaving it to a small number of people to make a decision, we thought it would be best to let the entire community participate. That way everyone who’s interested can have their voice heard.

So you’re invited to take our Rochester Falcon Naming Poll! Let us know if you think we should keep her name as is, come up with a brand new one, or combine her existing name with something else. Those who think we ought to choose a new name or a combined name will have an opportunity to suggest one.

Everyone is invited to take part in the survey, but each person may only answer the survey once. We’ll keep it running through the end of this month. After the survey closes we’ll tally the results. If “Beauty” wins, then that’s the end of it. If giving her a new name comes out on top we’ll hold another poll to pick from the suggested names.

Good luck and happy polling!

-Jess

View Quest Travels April 15 – 23 in a larger map
(Zoom in or out on the map by clicking the small + & – signs. Move it around by clicking your mouse button and dragging the map in the desired direction. Click the falcon icons for more information about each location.)

There was a five-day gap in the data from Quest’s transmitter, but it hasn’t been a problem. In fact, Quest is making it pretty easy for us to follow her daily routine. She’s found a good spot to spend her nights, the Stage Harbor Light House. It’s the highest structure around, so it’s likely she’s roosting on the light tower or possibly the peak of the roof. Here’s a picture of the map zoomed in on the light house. As you’ll see, her night-time locations are all within a couple hundred feet of the structure:

And what’s she doing with her days? Hunting off Monomoy Island, of course. In particular she appears to really enjoy the tidal flats just east of Stage Harbor on the northern end of Monomoy near the mainland (click the Sat button on the map to see the tidal flats). She’s so consistent in these locations that we think it’s only a matter of time before one of the local birders on the Cape gets a good look at her. They ought to have really good luck catching her at the lighthouse near dusk or dawn.

Mike Allen has sent us another update from the vets in Syracuse who are taking care of Mariah…

Mariah is improving every day. The Dr. came here yesterday and reapplied the skin glue to both her neck wound and wing wound. We measured the neck wound and it had decreased in size to 1/2″ X 1/2″. We actually measured it with a ruler. It is very scabbed over and nice new granulation tissue is growing around it. At some point we will remove the torn flap of skin on her patagium, but wanted that to heal better first.

She will continue to have small cage rest for a couple of weeks and then we will move her to an outside mew. I bought a soft, shock absorbing yoga mat and tacked it onto a 10″ wide piece of plywood and covered it with new Astroturf. We are screwing it to the top of a large perch so that she has a flat surface to stand on, since peregrines are cliff dwelling birds.

She loves the fresh quail we got her this week and she readily takes all her Baytril twice daily. She is a wonderful little patient. The doctor also looked at her eyes yesterday and found no visual impairment. We have not x-rayed her since she is showing no signs of any fractures anywhere. Legs, wings, feet etc. are working well. She cast a pellet yesterday that was as long as a lemon. We will keep you posted.

Photo Courtesy of Joyce Miller

Sunday brought together all the right factors– bright clear weather, plenty of photographers and observers, and not least a cooperative falcon– to allow us to positively identify the female Peregrine who has taken Mariah’s place in downtown Rochester. Falcon watcher Joyce Miller, who also got the definitive shot of Archer’s ID band, managed to snap this image of the female showing off her black and green bracelet. For those who can’t quite make out the ID, it’s 81/Y.

Yesterday evening we sent the photo and band ID off to some of our contacts including Barb Loucks and Mike Allen at the DEC. Today we heard back from them as well as Juanita Woods and Art McMorris from the State of Pennsylvania, and from them we’ve received the following history:

81/Y was was hatched and fledged in 2007 from the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning. Her parents are Erie *T/W (1998 Rhodes State Office Tower, Columbus, Ohio) and Dorothy 5/*A (1999 Firstar Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin). Erie’s parents were an unbanded male named Bandit and his 1st mate Aurora red 4R0 from Canada. Dorothy’s parents were Bill 74T (hacked in 1991 from Madison Wisconsin) and Sibella 20V (hacked in 1988 from Isle Royale, Keweenaw County, Michigan).

She received her ID bands on May 31, 2007. Her USFWS band has ID#1687-00506, and was initially covered with blue tape that has since fallen away. Pennsylvania doesn’t name the falcons they band, but her local watchers, Kate St. John (the “Peregrine Lady” of Pittsburgh) and Karen Lang, informally called her Beauty (both the name and the color of her tape began with the letter “B”). Kate writes a blog where she’ll be sharing the news about their former fledgling.

So welcome to “Beauty“, 81/Y! Everyone at the Rochester Falconcam is thankful to Juanita, Art, Kate, Barb and Mike for their help in tracking down the story of our newest Peregrine. We also want to extend our gratitude to Lou Capuano and Jim Pisello who photographed her and contributed to the ID effort, and the many watchers who have been looking out for this new pair of Peregrines.

We’re considering what to do about the fact that she doesn’t have an official name. For now we’ll continue to call her Beauty, but you know that Rochester has a long history of providing unique names for our falcons, so who knows what the future holds…?