The Uptown banding day excites all of us a great deal because we gain entrance to one of Chicago’s hidden treasures - The Uptown Theater.

(Most info from Wikipedia) The Uptown Theater is a massive movie palace in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. It was constructed in 1925 for the Balaban and Katz theater chain by architects Rapp and Rapp.

The theater is immense - in fact it is the largest in Chicago! It seats 4,381 people and its interior size (volume) is said to be larger than any other movie palace in the United States, including Radio City Music Hall in New York. It occupies over 46,000 square feet (4,300 m²) of land at the corner of Lawrence Avenue and Broadway in Chicago’s Uptown Square Entertainment District. The mammoth theater has an ornate five story entrance lobby with an eight story façade.

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Hi all! Here’s a quick update on bandings.

5821 N Broadway - Three chicks, two females and one male, were banded on May 28th.

Evanston Library - Four chicks, three females and one male, were banded on May 30th.

Waukegan - Five chicks, three females and two males, were banded on June 2nd.

125 S. Wacker - Banding to take place this week.

Uptown Theater - Banding to take place next week.

University of Illinois at Chicago - Banding to take place next week.

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Oh man, did I get behind! My life has been so busy of late, I haven’t had time to keep up with anything, but I am terribly sorry for the lack of updates! I’ll go back and fill in some of the blanks over the weekend, but let me start with a quick recap of this month’s events. I’ve written some more detailed entries, but haven’t posted them. I’ll try to backdate and post them over the long weekend. Anywho! Without further ado:

125 S. Wacker Falcons - The male at Wacker has been confirmed as Joe (b/g 59/H). Joe replaced last year’s male Etienne, as Etienne died over the winter. The female has yet to be confirmed, but is most likely Rahn, the female from last year. We were all very pleased to see that Rahn found a mate in time for this nesting season after the loss of Etienne in January. Joe and probably-Rahn are currently busy taking care of four chicks and we should be banding them shortly after Evanston.

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Here is Mary’s final report! Sorry it’s a bit late posting, but I’ve been a busy girl! This year, I’ve decided to help the Chicago Bird and Collision Monitors and Flint Creek Wildlife Rehab by transporting the DOA birds from Flint Creek to the Field Museum. As well, I’ve been out there with my camera, trying to get pictures of some of the migrants to add to my Chicago Bird Field Guide project. I’ve had a very successful Palm Warbler and Ovenbird year, but haven’t gotten many other good pictures. Oh, well, it’s a work in progress!

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Not much to report! Chick Two still owns the nesting ledge, though every time I see it, it seems like it had grown! Should fly very, very soon now. No word or sign of Chick One, but that is probably a good thing. Chances are, as busy as it’s been down here, if it had gone down somewhere, someone would have noticed.

Work training goes on and goes well, though I will say that rapidly learning a whole new group of organisms is a bit stressful. Lucky I get excited by that kind of challenge. Today, we went through the collection and I got more camera time. God, I love that camera.

I ran into Mary. Both Wacker chicks have gone down, but both were fine and released back on the nesting ledge. Other than that, we seem to be getting a lot less downed chicks this year. Yay! That is a REALLY good thing.

Oh! And Mary heard from Dave, the caretaker at the Uptown Theater. He said that all of the chicks have been flying around the area, mostly roosting on the big bank building when they aren’t in the air. So, that means that all of the Uptown chicks have successfully fledged!

More later!

ACTIVE SITES, NESTING VERIFIED

5821 N. Broadway
Adult female Auntie Em (b/g 5/*P, 1999, Milwaukee, WI) and adult male Tracy (b/g *P/M, 1997 Broadway, Chicago, IL) had five eggs. The first chick was sighted on May 9th.

Belmont & LSD
In the fall of 2006, a pair of peregrines began using the ledges of a building near Belmont and Lake Shore Drive. On November 21, 2006 the female was identified as Ballistic (b/g 69/C, 2005, Cleveland, OH) and the male was identified only as far as having a b/g band. We received no new reports regarding this pair again until then end of April 2007. Apparently, two eggs were laid in a gutter and lost during a rainstorm on 4/2/07. Ballistic was reported at the end of March over at St. Michael’s, paired with adult male Hops (see St. Michael’s below).

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I do not consider myself a pushy person. I’m generally laid back and prefer working hard and waiting to be given things over asking for things outright. This year, I have to admit that the Uptown Theater held the top spot on my “Nest Sites to Visit” list. So, I worked hard and waited and ‘lo! Last week, Mary asked me to come along on the Uptown Theater banding. Huzzah! Thank you, Mary!

(Above left: The fire escapes in back of the Uptown Theater with the nest site noted)

This morning, I made my way to the museum around 8:30am. Mary scheduled the banding for 11am, so I figured that would give me time to monitor the museum pair for a bit before we were due to leave.

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Mary just sent us an update on all the nests to this date. Wow! What a lot of activity!

125 S. Wacker
This site has been used for nesting since 1989. The 2007 adult male identification has been confirmed. The adult male is Etienne (b/b 7/6, 2002, Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada), the same male from last year. The adult female is suspected to be last years female, Rahn (b/g 01/A, Wisconsin Power and Light Edgewater Generating Station, Sheboygan, WI), but her bands have not been confirmed. They laid their first egg on 3/30/07 and completed a clutch of 4 (unconfirmed) eggs sometime later.

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