We’ve seen a number of interesting changes in behavior with the Peregrine chicks over the last few days. The most remarkable involving our largest one (presumably a female). More than once when the parents brought prey into the box she’s been grabbed it away from them and hauled it off into a corner where she could eat it herself. What a little miser! We’ve also been seeing some gentler behavior between the chicks which involved beak touching and subtle head gestures. These are actions that mimic what adult birds do when interacting with each other. More and more wing flapping has been taking place every day and it really puts on display the amount of feather growth that has taken place. These chicks are quickly turning into falcons. Our Fledge Watch is probably going to start in the middle of next week. We still need volunteers so please do register today! The falcons need your help and so do we!
Feeding time this evening – A Black-billed Cuckoo was the menu item
For the last few days we’ve been struggling to see through the fog of whitewash on the main camera. It has almost been like watching the birds in a dream! We hope to be switching to camera 2 as soon as we are able. Some may remember the last time we switched to the backup camera, it was immediately rendered useless by a troublesome feather that adhered to its lens. Now the nemesis feather has shifted somewhat and we’ve been able to get a much clearer view. This camera looks at the nest action from the perspective of the back of the box, so we should be able to see the young as they look outside through the box opening. It should be perfect for fledging time, which is now only a few weeks away. Speaking of which, if you are able to help us with our organized Fledge Watch please register ASAP on this site’s Fledge Watch page. We hope to see you there!
Our 3 little nestlings are not so little any more. In fact they’ve been exhibiting all manner of new behavior this week. They’ve been seen walking upright, feeding themselves (just a little bit) and shock of shocks – hopping up on the ledge. One of them actually did that just today and admittedly caused us some some heart flutter. Certainly their wing and tail feathers have been coming along nicely but they still have a long way to go. I guess that this was a foreshadow of things to come. Speaking of which, we need to set up a fledgling watch for our fine little trio. We’re hoping that there will not be a shortage of volunteers to help us safeguard Utica’s first fledglings on their maiden flight. There will be more information forthcoming on this project. If anyone of you have doubts about participating because you’ve never done this kind of thing before, just remember that none of us have experience doing this either. We’ll all be jumping into the wind just like the falcons.
Meanwhile, I’m sure that everyone has noticed the improvement in our falcon cam view. Sure there’s still some whitewash issues, but the resolution has markedly improved and the field of view has grown. Thanks to John Matthews, Deb Saltis and Steve Bennett for figuring it out. They are the best team anyone could wish for!
Do we see some nice wing and tail feathers coming in?
After banding the single Peregrine chick in the Syracuse nest, the DEC’s banding team came to Utica in order to band our 3 chicks. But after evaluating the situation on the ground, the 2 team members, Wildlife Biologist Steve Heerkens and the Utica Peregrine Falcon Project representatives were in full agreement that the banding should not go ahead as planned. It turned out that the box placement didn’t lend itself well to this type of procedure and since the safety of the young birds is of paramount importance, the banding was cancelled. Perhaps before the next breeding season a plan will developed specifically to deal how to safely extract nestlings from our nest box on the Adirondack Bank building, but as for this year – sorry there will be no bling for our babies. Better safe than sorry though!
Our apologies for the quality of the video feed lately. The view has become strangely compressed and the top banner with the date and time code has become extremely large. We are trying to fix this, but admittedly, it’s taking a while. We do appreciate everyone’s patience. Also, as everyone knows our primary camera has become liberally anointed with whitewash. We were hoping to take advantage of the banding operation to wash off camera 1 and remove the feather vale from camera 2, but alas none of that will happen now. This means that we have to put up with our obstructed view for the duration of the season. Meanwhile the chicks are growing like weeds! Wing and tail feathers are noticeably larger everyday and they are beginning to look and act more like little raptors. Well actually they still look pretty ridiculous – something like wads of wool haphazardly bound together. It’s hard to believe that someday they will look as sleek and beautiful as their parents.
Feeding time in blurry-ville
Rolls of wool haphazardly bound together or baby Peregrines? You decide
The New York State DEC intends on Banding the Utica Peregrine Falcon chicks sometime in the coming days. At just under 3 weeks old, the chicks are at the right age for this procedure to take place. It is believed that the easy access to this particular nest box will make this an especially quick process and that should help to minimize the stress caused to the parent birds. Banding is not usually very stressful for nestlings, nor is it painful in any way. The simple leg bands will not inhibit the birds abilities at all. Banding is regularly done with Peregrine Falcons across New York State as they are still designated as Endangered Species. Being able to keep track of individuals is considered important for conservation of the species. We will monitor the entire process and try to post some video after it takes place. The live cam will not be in operation during the procedure.
