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.
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.
I wish we had nest cameras at ALL of our sites. It is such a very cool thing to be able to take a bit of time out of your work day and click in to watch wild peregrines doing their breeding thang!
Today, I had a busy day here in the Insect department, as we are preparing our collection for a new databasing system at the museum. It’s all very cool and I can’t wait until we have our stuff perfectly cataloged and such.
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!
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).
More from Mary! I hope one of the MCC chicks gets spotted sometime this season.
Illinois Birds Nesting Outside the State
Jean (b/g 19/C)
Jean fledged from the Evanston Library in 2005. Currently, she is incubating 4 eggs on a bank building in Milwaukee.
Raynie (b/r A/*H)
Raynie fledged from Chicago’s Broadway site in 1995. Currently, she is nesting at the Pleasant Prairie Power Plant in Kenosha, WI. This is her eleventh year nesting at this site. In 1996, she nested at the WEBCO Oak Creek Power Plant in Milwaukee, WI.
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.
Again, no pictures of note today of the MCC birds. Hercules caught a pigeon and a warbler while I was there. Same routine. She brings it in, Max comes down from skyperch, much vocalization ensues, Max takes the prey into the nest, Hercules flies off to get more. Max reemerges and heads back to the skyperch to wait.
When I got into work, I fired up the Waukegan webcam. Waukegan sits on the shore of Lake Michigan, about ten miles south of the border with Wisconsin and forty miles north of Chicago. I’ve never been to Waukegan but I have ridden the Metra Northline a grand number or times, especially when Jay, Kay and Hill lived in Evanston years ago.
For some reason, the train conductors loved saying the word “Waukegan” and would walk down the aisle before the train left, shouting, “This train makes all stops north and ends at WAHW-KEEEE-GAN. WAHW-KEEE-GAN!”
I guess it is sort of a funny word.
It looks as thought the Waukegan falcons have four chicks. These guys, you might note, are a lot bigger than the Evanston chicks. They hatched about a week or two before them.
The MCC chicks probably look about like this, as they are circa 17 days old now. The parents no longer overwhelm our chicks in size by day 17. The feathers that cover the body of the bird, called Contour Feathers, start to push the first baby down out. I guess it’d sorta be like human teething. The tips of the tail feathers should be visible at this point. You can see this stage here.