6 March 2025

There’s a lot of peregrine news in southwestern Pennsylvania right now as mated pairs prepare to nest. Our earliest couple is already on eggs at the Tarentum Bridge.

Tarentum Bridge, Allegheny River:

On Tuesday 4 March Dave Brooke saw the gray lump of a peregrine’s head laying low in the nestbox. This position usually indicates incubation is in progress, particularly if the bird does not move around.

Last year the Tarentum Bridge female laid eggs around February 21st so it is very likely she’s on eggs right now at this location:

Cathedral of Learning, Univ of Pittsburgh:

Ecco and Carla are on the National Aviary falconcam several times a day as they court and prepare their nest. Yesterday their third courtship session lasted five minutes, then Carla puttered at the nest for an additional eight minutes. The length of both activities indicates how close they are to nesting.

This 2+ minute video is just a small part of their late afternoon courtship session. The fade-to-black transition marks the moment when Carla begins puttering.

Watch for eggs in the next two to three weeks on the National Aviary falconcam at the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning.

Sewickley Bridge, Ohio River:

Happy news at the Sewickley Bridge! Yesterday, 5 March, I had to run an errand in Sewickley so I stopped by the Chestnut Street boat ramp (in the rain!), saw a peregrine at the nestbox and told Jeff Cieslak. After the rain ended Jeff found both peregrines at home, one in the nestbox and one on the pier near the nav light (yellow arrows).

Woo Hoo! Thank you, Jeff, for requesting this nestbox last year and thanks to PennDOT for installing it.

Spruce Run Bridge, Ohio River:

Jeff Cieslak checked for peregrines along the Ohio River throughout February. He found the female at her Spruce Run home on the 11th and what seems to be both of them on nearby Neville Island on the 25th.

Eckert Street / McKees Rocks / Brunot Island, Ohio River:

The “Eckert Street peregrines,” who didn’t nest at Eckert Street last year, have so many places they could choose to nest that they are hard to keep track of. Last month Jeff Cieslak found one hanging out on the Alcosan smokestack and the other on a nearby power tower.

Jeff’s photo indicates the male is in immature plumage. Though young, there are records of male peregrines breeding at this age so we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

Westinghouse Bridge, Turtle Creek near Monongahela River:

On 25 February Dana Nesiti found both peregrines at home at the Westinghouse Bridge. He suspects they courted near the scrape while he was there, though he couldn’t see tit.

PEREGRINE SUMMARY FOR SOUTHWEST PA: All the potential sites and latest sightings are listed below. Help fill in the blanks by visiting one of these locations. Leave a comment if you need my help in finding the site.

24 February 2025

If you watch courtship among bald eagles or red-tailed hawks you’ve seen that it includes flying together, perching together, and bringing sticks to the nest. Peregrine falcons also fly together but they have different traditions when it comes to close courtship and nest building. Yesterday the Pitt peregrines engaged in these activities as seen on the National Aviary streaming falconcam.

After a 12 day hiatus, Carla reappeared on camera yesterday and engaged in two courtship bouts with Ecco. Their ledge displays included bowing together, vocalizing and touching beaks (see Familiarities on the Cliff). This bowing session lasts about 90 seconds.

Following this encounter, Carla stayed at the nest to do some “nest building.” I’ve put those words in quote marks because it doesn’t look like building at all. Instead she scrapes the gravel with her feet, then putters and rearranges the stones and bones. There are lots of tiny bird bones on the gravel left over from last year’s successful nesting season.

Carla doesn’t add anything to the nest. No sticks, no grass. She will lay her eggs in the bowl she and Ecco scrape in the gravel. Her puttering takes twice as long as the bowing session — 3 minutes.

Carla hardly needed to do any scraping yesterday because Ecco has made the scrape deeper every day while she was off camera. You can see the scrape (bowl) under the roof in this photo.

And here he is, digging the scrape on 18 February.

For more information about peregrine “nest building” see this Peregrine FAQ:

They Nest On Gravel

8 February 2025

In early February, southwestern Pennsylvania’s resident peregrines are courting and making sure their territories are secure. Meanwhile, adults without a nest site — called “floaters” — are searching for a completely new site, or exploring the existing territories to find a weak resident who cannot keep them out. Sometimes there’s a changeover of who owns what. It’s an exciting time to watch peregrines that lasts through March.

This week the same resident peregrines courted on camera at the Cathedral of Learning while it appears there’s been a changeover at the Tarentum Bridge.

Cathedral of Learning, Univ of Pittsburgh: At Pitt, Ecco is often seen on the falconcam, preening on the green perch while he waits for Carla to show up. Yesterday she was off camera when Ecco began to “echup” and bow. Then she jumped in.

Tarentum Bridge, Allegheny River:

The resident pair at the Tarentum Bridge, a female with a dotted chest and a banded male (black/green 48/BR, hatched in 2014), have been quite successful since they first became a couple in 2018. Over the years they’ve fledged 20 young and have often been the first to nest. Last year she laid eggs in late February.

This year Dave Brooke discovered they aren’t the same couple. In photographs the female looks the same…

… but the male is unbanded so he has to be new. This is not surprising since 48/BR would be eleven years old, an age when younger males step in.

This new couple is not on the early nesting schedule like the old pair. The female wants to mate now but he’s not in the mood. Yesterday she was calling to him from the nestbox.

But he ignored her.

The Tarentum Bridge female with spotted throat was sitting on the nest box and male was on the opposite end of the pier. She was wailing for some time before flying out and around the closer pier before disappearing on the Westmoreland side of the river.

— Facebook post by Dave Brooke in Pittsburgh Falconuts

Fortunately these two still have lots of time to get in sync.

UPDATE on the afternoon of 8 Feb 2025: Steve Gosser saw them mating.

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)

26 January 2025

Since 2021 a pair of peregrines has claimed the Sewickley Bridge as their territory but there’s never been a successful nest. Jeff Cieslak photographs the peregrines at this site and confirmed last April that the male was banded (black/green 05/S) and hatched at Pitt in 2010.

When the nest failed again in 2024 and Jeff heard that PennDOT was going to repair the bridge, he contacted the PA Game Commission and PennDOT to see if they’d put up a nestbox. And they did!

Here’s the story and photos from Jeff Cieslak at Our Daily Bird on Facebook:

“BIG NEWS: I can’t take any credit for constructing or installing it, but I will take 100% of the credit for making it happen at all: PennDOT installed a falcon nest box on the southern pier of the Sewickley Bridge. The pair nesting there for the past several years have not been able to raise any young, due to a dearth of good nesting sites. But they try every year, so when PennDOT announced that they were closing the bridge last April to do some expansion joint work, I contacted them to let them know that it seemed that there was an active nesting attempt going on (though I was pretty sure it would fail). At the end of a meeting with PennDOT, the PA Game Commission, and myself, PennDOT agreed to install a nest box under the PAGC’s direction. Apparently, they installed it in the fall — but I just found out about it last week and went to see it today.

“Nesting season will start in earnest around the beginning of March, but they might start checking the box out sooner. It would have been great to see one hanging out in the vicinity of the box today, but the falcons weren’t around this morning.

“Construction photos from PennDOT.”

— Jeff Cieslak, Our Daily Bird on Facebook, 12 January 2025

Early this month Mark Young at PennDOT sent Jeff these photos which were taken during the installation on 1 November 2024.

Jeff checked it out on Saturday 11 January and sent me this map of the best place to view the nestbox area.

… and this is what you can see though binoculars or a zoom lens.

Peregrine nesting season is heating up. Stay tuned or visit the site yourself to see what’s up.

For more news and a daily dose of birds, follow Jeff Cieslak’s Our Daily Bird on Facebook.

14 January 2025

The peregrine falcons at the Cathedral of Learning, Ecco and Carla, are already thinking about the upcoming nesting season. Two months from now Carla will be only days away from her first egg so the peregrines are ramping up courtship this month, snow or no.

There’s been snow on the nest since 2 January but that hasn’t stopped their visits. Yesterday the temperature nudged above freezing for most of the day and shrank the snow cover. At 4pm Ecco and Carla stopped by for a courtship bowing session.

If you’re lucky this month you’ll see them in the still shot at FALCONCAM – CL snapshots.

Stay tuned for the National Aviary‘s Live Stream that starts in February.