Good news! The fledgling peregrine from the Elizabeth Bridge, who was found injured on the road deck on 3 June 2018, has recovered. He was released to a peregrine foster family last week.
This youngster was one of at least two fledglings at the Elizabeth Bridge. The other was found dead on the road deck on 5 June. The nest site his parents chose — above the road and without any ledges — makes it a dangerous location for first flight. (Read more here)
Thanks to the care he received at Wildlife Works rehabilitation facility in Youngwood the fledgling recovered from head trauma and was ready to go last week. On 25 June the Pennsylvania Game Commission released him to a foster family of wild peregrines in northeastern Pennsylvania where the chicks are the same age as he is.
While with his foster family he will strengthen his flight muscles, improve his flying skills, and learn to hunt. When he’s ready to leave he’ll disperse on his own.
His release shows that Pennsylvania’s wild peregrines are doing well. This year there are enough wild peregrine nests that youngsters in rehab facilities are released to foster families rather than to hacking. The Elizabeth Bridge juvenile and our Downtown peregrine chicks were all released to wild foster families.
In the photo above, PGC’s Patti Barber holds the Elizabeth Bridge juvenile just before he’s released near his foster family’s nest. The nest is on a cliff (not in the picture), high above a river that’s visible in the background.
Here’s another picture of him just after he was released. In a tree!
Congratulations and thanks to everyone who helped this young peregrine restart his life in the wild. Good luck to him.
(photos courtesy the Pennsylvania Game Commission, Southwest Region)
Funny seeing a peregrine in a tree. Replace the peregrine with a hawk or eagle and this image would seem more commonplace. I rarely to never see the urban peregrines in trees and foliage, so I appreciate the picture!
Nick, I agree. Urban peregrines rarely perch in trees. The rural ones have more trees than cliffs to choose from. 🙂
Is there a safer place on Elizabeth bridge that perhaps a nest box could be attached? Very sad to think this will happen every year now, if they are leaping into traffic they have very poor chance of survival.
Linda, we can look for a safer place on the bridge as a potential nestbox site and ask the Game Commission to place one there, but all of this will have to wait until PennDOT has finished work on the bridge. Even with a nestbox, the pair at Elizabeth may choose to use their unsafe location. Years ago the Game Commission installed a nestbox at the Tarentum Bridge where the pair was nesting in a location unsafe for the fledglings but that pair wouldn’t use it. Instead it took a completely new pair to show up and decide to use the nestbox.