Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Peregrine Falcon Update-March 18th

This little guy here is very lucky to be alive. I was not in the office on Friday or this past Monday and went I went in on Tuesday, the security guard to my building told me the male Peregrine Falcon flew into our building. Our building is all mirrors so I am assuming he thought it was another male and he was going after him to defend his territory. I was very upset over this but the security guard assured me he seemed all right afterwards. I was not convinced of this after hearing of two red tailed hawks who had died over the past few years after striking these windows so went searching for him yesterday with no success. I found him today on his favorite perching ledge and was relieved. I am hoping he has learned his lesson and won't try it again, but want to be prepared if he is not. I am hoping someone out there familiar with the falcons is reading this and can perhaps give me some information on who was tracking them in the past to see if they had any rehabilitors out there familiar with these Peregrines. I am going to give the Wildlife number out to security and maintenance to our building just in case this happens again and he looks injured and let them know they should contact me right away if it is during business hours so I can call them and Tufts. It would break my heart if this one got injured to the window strikes
Anyway, here is the clearest picture I could get of either of them today. The ledge he is on is one block away from me and up about 4 floors higher than me so good pictures are not possible. As you can see he looks quite comfy on the ledge.

Here is the female giving him the eyeball. She is not happy he spends all of his time there and lets him know by calling out to him. He seems to ignore her protests and continues to hang out of the ledge and groom his feathers.


Finally she has had enough and she decided to fly over there to give him a piece of her mind.


And THIS is what she did! LOL!!! The picture is really bad because I was overly excited while taking this and couldn't focus but if you squint your eyes you can see him cowering over her fury! I so wish the picture would have come out better because I love it so much. You would think Romeo would have gotten the hint that she wanted some quality time over at their nest, but he wanted no part of it and continued to perch on the ledge.

She flew back and went deeper into the nesting box. I am guessing she may have already laid her eggs and that is why she is there all the time.

To be continued as always.




19 comments:

Steve said...

Glad it turned out O.K.in the end. I've still got the inprint of a Pigeon on one of my windows and he survived! You can get things to stick on the windows to deter bird strikes, they don't cost much. You are lucky to have a Peregrine so close.

Anonymous said...

She looks a lot like me when I get ignored! ha ha

Helen said...

Glad that he is ok. Maybe he is just recouping after his accident is why he stays away from her. Have you been watching the live Eagle Cam in VA? I have watched it going on three years. Her eggs are due to hatch this week. Helen
http://www.wvec.com/cams/eagle.html

Larry said...

This Peregrine Falcon saga is getting interesting.I feel like I'm following a soap opera-they did have a show named Falcon Crest some time back.

Leedra said...

Happy ending, hopefully. Maybe you will get baby photos. Wouldn't that be great?

Leedra’s Photos For Fun

Leedra’s Greeting Cards

Photography By Leedra

Kelly said...

...we just had a mourning dove fly into our window and he didn't survive. We have those stickers, but I guess the light was just right and fooled him. Interesting behavior of the female...she must be nesting!

A New England Life said...

As The Bird World Turns ; )

Two Red-tailed Hawks died hitting the windows? What a tragedy. Hopefully the Falcons won't meet the same fate.

Keep your eyes open Kim!

Shelley said...

Your female is a feisty one! You captured some great shots - especially her flying over to him! I wonder if those people who own the building or in those offices w/ the window strikes could be told to put up some window decals to keep the birds from hurting themselves. Did you know that window strikes kill between 100 million - 1 billion birds per year?? Incredible numbers! Here's the article in case you're interested: http://www.sialis.org/windowstrikes.htm

Anonymous said...

Kim..this is as close as I could find in your state. I would e-mail this person and ask them so you can be prepared.

Massachusetts, Northeast region, Essex County (South Hamilton)..... 978-468-4897
Patricia S. Bade, licensed wildife rehabilitator
Patbade@msn.com
Wildlife Species: owls and hawks only

Anonymous said...

Must have got his bell rung pretty good. You got great shots through it all! Reminds me, time to get out there and re-string my anit-window strike set up; it's simple but effective -will post about it when it's done. Wouldn't do for big buildings though.

Betsy Banks Adams said...

Glad it all turned out okay, Kim. I am enjoying your stories about the falcons.
Hugs,
Betsy

Rich said...

Great story! Great pictures.

Kim said...

Thanks all. The problem with this building is that it is 24 floors of glass. I can't even imagine asking them to put decals on all of it! They would need some pretty large decals too considering each glass panel is almost as tall as I am. It kills me to see though because a lot of the smaller birds fall victim to the building every spring. I am going to have to do more research @ audubon as I know they have collected info on bird strikes in city buildings in the past.

Jayne said...

Whew.... that was scary. Hope he is OK, and that he learned something. That is so funny to see her going to get him. You can just imagine the bird dialogue...lol.

Anonymous said...

Glad the Falcon looks fine after the collision.

It makes you wonder what nuckleheads came up with the idea to cover a building in reflective glass panels. Maybe if they flew into a glass panel at 40 mph, they would come up with a better plan.

It's estimated that as many as 1 billion birds die each year in the United States due to collisions with windows. source: Audubon at Home

Here is some hopeful news: Ottawa boy's invisible invention warns birds about deadly windows

NCmountainwoman said...

Nice update. We had nesting Peregrines on several buildings in Milwaukee. I'm not sure anything can be done to prevent the window strikes in such large urban areas.

Anonymous said...

This is still nice to see and your photos provided the insight.

Kathie Brown said...

So glad the peregrine is alright! Julie Zickefoose wrote an article recently in BWD about how to prevent window strikes, though I doubt they would let you employ her method on that large building! Susan of Susan Gets Native in Ohio is a Raptor Rehabilitator. Check out her blog. She may be able to hook you up with someone in your state.

Tina said...

Wow looks like she really gave it to him..don't blame her for a min...we all hate being ignored..he needs that honey do list!1
So glad you are keeping an eye out for him..I can see your point about buying decals for all those windows..those bird alert decals are pretty costly!!
Maybe he got the hint..and will pay attention to her more and less on his reflection..
Keep us posted.

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails