1 February 2025

It’s Peregrine Season!

Today the National Aviary’s Falconcam at the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning has begun live streaming for the 2025 peregrine nesting season. Watch the Pitt falconcam to see the nesting season unfold.

For the next six weeks we’ll see the resident peregrine falcon pair courting at the nest: Ecco (male, unbanded) and Carla (female, banded Black/Blue S/07). These two have been a couple ever since Ecco’s former mate, Morela, died in mid-May 2023. Carla arrived that month but it was too late to begin a nest so they waited until the next season. Last spring they raised two young.

If Carla follows the same schedule as 2024 she’ll lay her first egg in mid-March, the eggs will hatch in late April, and the young will fledge around 1 June.

This week when the stream was in test mode it captured Ecco and Carla bowing at the nest. Watch as they strengthen their pair bond last Tuesday. (NOTE: Male peregrines are 1/3 smaller than females. The biggest bird is female.)

Click here and scroll down to watch the National Aviary Falconcam at the Cathedral of Learning.

(photo and video from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)