Since our last update, Michael Allen from the New York DEC and members of the Rochester Falconcam Relocation Team have been busy touring some additional sites and moving forward with other related activities. Mike has inspected the nest box that was removed from Kodak, and he’s pronounced it fit for use in a new location.

The team has considered about a dozen sites so far. Some have been rejected because of concerns about human activity nearby, safety of people who might have access the nest site, or physical problems with the building’s layout. Two sites, the Powers Building in downtown Rochester, and the High Falls Brewing Company, look like promising locations. Mike has decided to install the Kodak box on the Powers Building. He and the relocation team are working with the building’s managers to firm up an installation date.

Photo courtesy of Mike Allen
The historic Powers Building isn’t as tall as the Kodak tower, but it has a lot of similarities, including a central tower with a flat area at the top, and plenty of nooks and crannies on the building’s facade. It’s about a half mile from Kodak and close to the river. There’s a good line of sight to Mariah’s former nest site, a desirable feature according to the DEC experts. The building’s owners are enthusiastic about hosting a nest box and they’ve expressed interest in working with the Rochester Falconcam to install cameras too! If we learn that this fall that Mariah has chosen the Powers Building nest box, we should be able to put in cameras later this year, in time for the falcons’ return next spring.

The High Falls Brewing Company is also being considered for a nest box install. There are a few more details to be worked out at that location but we’ve surveyed the site and the Brewery has said they’re willing to host the falcons and to work with us on installing cameras as well. If everyone’s calendars allow, we hope to install nest boxes within the next two weeks. We’ll post more updates when we get the final installation details nailed down.

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We’ve received a number of questions from our viewers about the relocation. Here are a few of them, and their answers.

Q: What are all of the sites that are being considered or investigated for relocation?

A: A total of twelve sites have been considered. Many of them were surveyed, either in person or by using virtual tools available on the internet. The sites and the results of our evaluation are listed below

• Bausch & Lomb: Not contacted
• Button Factory: Contacted, but owner not interested.
• City Hall: Rejected. Pending repairs to the building (similar situation to Kodak tower) will mean that there will be human activity near any nest box.
• Crossroads Bldg: Rejected after remote survey due to equipment on the roof and human use of the balcony just below.
• First Federal Plaza: Rejected. Too much open space on the roof; human activity above the nest box in the old Changing Scenes restaurant; machinery on the restaurant roof may require maintenance during nesting season
• Frontier Communications Tower: Rejected due to difficulty of access and likelihood of human activity/maintenance on the antennas
• High Falls Brewing Co: Live site survey completed. This site is still under consideration, but there are some concerns about the proposed nest box site on the roof being too open (not isolated enough) and possibly subject to human activity nearby.
• High Falls Business Center: Contacted, but owner not interested.
• HSBC: Not contacted
• Powers Building: Approved following live site survey
• Times Square Bldg: UPDATED! This site is being re-evaluated, and will be surveyed this week by the DEC.
• Xerox: Rejected. Construction to start nearby

 

Q: What criteria are being used to evaluate the alternatives and to determine the best locations for a nest box?

A: Some of the factors that have been taken into account include:

• Is the site close to the Genesee River?
• Does it have line of sight to the Kodak tower?
• Is there an isolated place to install the nest box that is free from human activity within 40-50 meters?
• Is the site free from machinery, antennas or other equipment that might require repair during the nesting season?
• Is the site free from hazards to the falcons?
• Does the site provide protection from the weather?
• Does the site have architectural features such as ledges and niches that replicate the peregrine’s natural habitat?
• Are the building owners/managers enthusiastic about hosting a Peregrine nest box?

None of these (except possibly the last one) are show-stoppers on their own– All factors will be considered for each site when deciding on its suitability as a nest box location.

 

Q: Has the team confirmed if they are still considering putting up several nest boxes and how many?

A: One site has been confirmed, and there are a couple of others still under consideration.

 

Q: We know that Kaver and the fledglings have been spotted at the Brewery but how often does Mariah go there? Will we have to wait until Kaver comes back from vacation to see which site he chooses? If the nest box(es) are installed soon and Mariah prefers one over the other, will that be cool with Kaver or is he the deciding factor here?

A: In the wild the male will typically select a few possible nesting spots, but it is the female who chooses which one to use from year to year. The DEC has informed us that the presence or absence of an adult or juveniles perching at a particular location isn’t a reliable indicator of whether it will make a good nesting site. Whether Mariah perches on the Brewery buildings or not isn’t really part of the calculation. We’re more interested in the site’s logistics like its proximity to water, isolation from human contact, height, and so on. If Kaver arrives in the spring to find Mariah using a box at the Brewery then we can be pretty sure that’s where the nest will be. Similarly if they choose a box before Kaver leaves for the winter, it’s likely that’s the one that will be used in the spring.

-Jess

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(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 continues to stay at Cape Cod. The locations for the past several days show that she’s spending her time flying up and down in the vicinity of State Rt 6, no doubt taking advantage of all of the prey available to her.

Meanwhile, the sharp-eyed birders at the Cape continue to report Quest sightings. Here’s a recent one, posted on the Massbirds message list from Alex Krofta.

On Thursday 9/6 at about 5PM we saw a peregrine falcon cruising along the beach (harbor side) near Corn Hill Landing Road in Truro. Since we were standing at the top of the dunes, the bird was quite close to us [and] appeared to have an antenna sticking up from its back. It continued south along the beach and out of sight but returned a few minutes later. ( We assume it was the same bird, but of course can’t be certain.) This time we got a better look at the antenna, and there also seemed to be a lump at the base of it, probably about halfway down the bird’s back. The antenna was maybe 8″-12″ long and looked “striped” with thick dark and light segments. Again, the bird moved south down the beach.

Some of our readers have wondered how Quest fared after the remnants of Tropical Storm Hannah passed over the Cape. We’re happy to report that she was spotted by John Kaar, on the 7^th of September. John was able to observe Quest’s ID band and he reported them to the Bird Banding Lab at the US Geological Survey, who forwarded his report to us. Here’s what John told us about his sighting.

Sunday, September 7 was beautiful on the lower Cape, tropical storm Hannah having passed by overnight. I was walking with my wife and friends on Chatham’s South Beach, down near the low tide surf, when I noticed Quest sitting on a pile of wrack up at the high tide level near the dune grass. At a distance I wasn’t sure it was a bird, despite the silhouette, because her front markings blended in so well with the dried seaweed. She watched as I approached and shot pictures, then seemed to lose interest in me and started preening. After shooting several pictures, we walked on down the beach. Quest was still there when we returned 20 minutes later, so I got some more photos, which included good views of the color leg bands. I was a little surprised that Quest stayed in one place while we circled around her (albeit at a distance), but she seemed to be in good shape, so I assumed she was just tired after the previous day’s storm.

Even better, John took a few pictures of Quest with his new digital camera!

     

     

John tells us that he bought his camera specifically to get better birding pictures. We think he did a great job!

-Jess

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(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 continues to make the eastern edge of Cape Cod her home. The last few days’ location data place her mostly in the southeast corner of the cape. It looks like she’s settled down, and we’ll just have to see when, or if, she decides to go elsewhere. It’s a bit boring to watch, perhaps, but you can hardly fault her. She’s found a place where she can thrive, at least for now. It’s good fortune for a young falcon like her, to be able to hunt and keep herself fed. Hopefully the skills she’s practicing now will serve her well when she decides to seek her fortunes elsewhere.

-Jess

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(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 seems to be settling in to her summer “territory” very well. As with the rest of August, she has continued to roam up and down Cape Cod. In contrast to some of our recent maps, we’re showing her over the water at a couple of points in this one. Transmitter data from the last two days of August were not of the highest Confidence Level, (degree of accuracy), so the specific locations may be off by as much as several kilometers. Nevertheless they fall within the expected range of her travels so we feel confident including them here.

A few days ago we received another eyewitness report of Quest at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Refuge from Rich Johnson. Here’s what he had to say:

“Three days ago I noticed a peregrine strafing [Goose Pond] here at WellfleetBay and the volunteer naturalist there (Ivan Ace) put his binocs on it and saw the antenna profile… The photos are from Aug 17…”

And here are the pictures that Rich sent along!
          

On behalf of the Rochester Falconcam team and all of Quest’s fans around the world, we want to thank Rich and Ivan for their sharp eyes and great camera skills!

If anyone happens to see or photograph Quest, we’d love to hear from you!

-Jess

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(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’s little question that Quest has found a place to spend the rest of the summer, as the location data from her transmitter continues to place her on Cape Cod. It’s an attractive spot for a Peregrine. Prey is plentiful, because of the high concentration of shorebirds. It’s also a migration route for other birds, so getting food is probably not too hard for her. That’s an important consideration for a young bird like Quest, who is still honing her hunting skills.

We’ve had another eyewitness sighting, this one from August 7^th when Quest was near Nantucket Island. Here’s the report from Falconcam fans Lyn & Bill Howard:

“Witnessed Quest on Aug 7th at 9:45am on north shore of Tuckernuck Island west of Nantucket Island and observed with binoculars, Quest gain altitude and perform a stoop. Kill obscured by land. Kayaked to sand spit and observed Quest on a Tern Kill at eye level 15 feet away. Quest flew off 70 minutes after first siting to the southeast after being dive bombed by 2 terns repeatedly and headed right for a startled Blue Heron working a tidal pond then disappeared over a bluff of land. Nothing left of kill except feathers. What an experience. Only saw a silver leg band on right foot and the transmitter wire. Any other bands might have been obscured by leg feathers-also a small red area on her breast was observed assumed where feathers had been lost [ed. note: This is most likely the transmitter harness, which is made from red neoprene material]. We look forward tracking Quest’s voyage wherever she goes… Thank you Quest for letting us be there with you…”

Thank you Lyn and Bill for providing us with a terrific account of Quest on the hunt! Knowing that she’s feeding herself by stooping on prey is welcome news. Birds like terns are relatively slow, abundant targets, and a single successful hunt could provide enough nutrition for a few days. And since there are a lot of them around, she might just stay until the birds embark on their winter migration. If she continues to feed herself successfully there, it could be a month or more before she makes any significant moves, likely following her prey as they head south.

-Jess

It’s been a while since we’ve posted news about the relocation of Mariah’s nest box. You may recall that this past June Kodak announced that it would need to remove the nest box in order to avoid harm to Mariah, her offspring, or the dozens of workers who will be restoring the deteriorating masonry on the Kodak tower over the next three years. Kodak is working with the Rochester Falconcam and the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation to maximize the chance of a successful relocation.

Last week we took the first step in the process. Falconcam team members fal-Kenn Martinez and Jim Pisello were on hand to supervise and assist as a special team hired by Kodak disconnected the nest box from the steel brackets that held it against the Kodak tower for over a decade. Jim has posted a heartfelt account of the removal activity on his blog, Peregrinations.

The Rochester Falconcam’s Nest Box Relocation team has been busy touring some potential relocation sites. A couple we’ve seen so far are the First Federal Plaza and the High Falls Brewing Company. In the next couple of weeks we hope to tour several more, but the team is still engaged in discussions with a number of property owners, and the DEC must certify the sites for their fitness to host a nest box.

It may seem that the pace of the relocation is a little slow, but things are progressing as fast as we can move them in light of the busy schedules of those involved in the relocation, and the many complexities of this important project. We’re happy to report that we’re still on schedule to begin installing new nest boxes in a couple of weeks, though no date has yet been announced. The biologists at the DEC tell us we still have plenty of time to get the boxes in place, so we’re looking forward to taking the next steps to erect a couple of new penthouses for Mariah to choose as the nursery for her family in 2009 and beyond.

-Jess

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(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 continues to enjoy her time at the Massachusetts shore. She spent the past week exploring up and down State Route #6 on Cape Cod, where she is presumably dining on a smorgasbord of shorebirds.

And now for a really special treat… A couple of days ago the DEC’s Barbara Loucks forwarded an email to us from Shawn Carey. Shawn is a professional wildlife photographer and a member of the Massachusetts Audubon Society. It turns out that on August 17^th Shawn was photographing at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary on the cape, when he came across a banded juvenile Peregrine. It was Quest! Shawn took some fantastic photos of Quest, and he reports:

“She sat there for about three hours with many people walking by, stopping to view and photograph [her]… [She] was a fun bird to see and photograph and needless to say that has never happened to me in my many years of wildlife photography.”

We need to invite Shawn to spend some time with us at the High Falls next June or July! Many thanks to Shawn and the Massachusetts Audubon Society, as well as Mike Amaral at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and Barbara Loucks for connecting the dots needed to identify Quest.

Quest looks great, and she doesn’t appear to be in any hurry to leave. It’s likely there’s plenty of prey nearby, and hopefully few predators. It’s possible she could spend the rest of the summer where she is. In any case, we’ll keep watching to see what her next move will be.

-Jess

Zephyr makes a turn by the High Falls in this photograph captured by Jim Pisello on July 14. He tells us that on this morning all five of the fledglings were out in the gorge, but the “Z-man put on quite a show, grabbing at the tops of trees and harassing his sisters with games of talon tag.”

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(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 continued her eastward trek in August, reaching the Massachusetts coast in the first week. She looks like she’s taking a little vacation, visiting tony Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket and Cape Cod. We’ve omitted some data points with signals that weren’t as strong (keep reading for an explanation), but the majority of data indicate that she’s having a great time exploring the far eastern reaches of the US. Most of Mariah’s offspring whose locations are known– and all that previously had transmitters– went north or west. So Quest’s eastern movement is an unexpected surprise.

By the way, it looks like our earlier announcement that she’d flown north to Maine and Quebec may not have been accurate (sorry about that!). The data placing her there is included in her August travels, but its reliability is questionable, based on the transmitter’s signal strength at the time those data were received. It’s possible that she headed north, but since all the rest of the data for the month so far puts her firmly in the Nantucket/Cape Cod area, we’re skeptical of our earlier announcement.

WARNING!!! Technical Content Ahead!
Quest’s satellite transmitter has a small battery that is recharged by a solar panel mounted on top of the transmitter body (here’s a picture). The battery supplies power for the radio-frequency transmitter that sends its signal to a bunch of satellites orbiting the Earth. To save power, the transmitter only sends data for a few hours at a time. Then it shuts down for many more hours. This “transmit and rest” process is called a Duty Cycle. Its timing was programmed into the transmitter before Quest received it.

The power of the transmitter is pretty low– about 100mW– so the signals that get up to the satellites may not always be very strong. The variability in the signals, differences in terrain, even local weather and time of day can create uncertainty about the accuracy of the data. So each time the satellites receive data from the transmitter, they assign a confidence value to the location based on the strength of the signal and other factors. The data we receive includes the location information, and also the confidence value assigned to each piece of data. We try to post the data with the highest confidence levels, but sometimes the only data we get in a duty cycle is of questionable accuracy.

So, it looks like Quest really can’t go much farther east, unless she hitches a ride on a fishing boat or a cargo ship! It’ll be interesting to see what move she makes next.

-Jess

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(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.)

We’re happy to offer the first of what we hope will be twice-weekly updates on Quest’s travels. Since we have some older data we thought we’d show you where she’s been, then work our way forward. So our first map plots her July journey.

As you can see, Quest spent most of her time hanging out in Rochester. In fact, for the first four weeks the strongest data we received placed her in and around the downtown and High Falls areas.

Then, at the end of the month she decided to head east. In just a few days she made it all the way to Duanesburg, just east of New York’s fabled Leatherstocking region. That’s what we at the Rochester Falconcam like to call good flying!

Check back soon for more updates.

-Jess