Peregrine fans were happy to see the Downtown pair at the Gulf Tower last weekend.

On Saturday Louie watched from the pillar at dusk.  On Sunday they bowed together in the afternoon and Dori stopped by at sunset.

Here are two slideshows showing their activity, one from each day.

Louie visits on Saturday, 3 February 2018, 5:20 to 5:35pm:

… and they both visit on Sunday, 4 February 2018, 1:44 to 1:54pm:

This weekend Dori and Louie provided a convenient way to tell who’s who when they perch on the pillar.  Here’s a comparison photo with tips below.  The obelisk on the horizon above their heads is the Cathedral of Learning.  It’s a very useful landmark.

Who’s who on the Gulf Tower pillar:

• When Louie’s on the pillar, he’s small enough that you can see some of Oakland between the base of the Cathedral of Learning and the top of his head.
• When Dori’s on the pillar, she wears the Cathedral of Learning like a hat. There’s very little space between her head and the base of the building.

Watch the Gulf Tower camera at the National Aviary here for more appearances of the Downtown peregrines.

Our fingers are crossed that they’ll nest here this year!

(photos from the National Aviary falconcam at the Gulf Tower, Pittsburgh)

Wishing for peregrine season?  Here’s a 2017 slideshow of Pittsburgh’s Downtown peregrines, Dori and Louie, to get you in the mood.

The Downtown nesting season began with one big question: Where will Dori lay her eggs?   Years ago she always nested at the Gulf Tower, but now she sometimes uses a Third Avenue site and in 2015 she nested at the old Macy’s building.

We weren’t sure where she’d nest until the last moment.  On March 8 she laid her first egg at the Gulf Tower.  How happy!

We watched the family on the Gulf Tower falconcam for the rest of the season.  Highlights included:

• First egg on 8 March 2017.  Dori ultimately laid five eggs.
• First pip and first hatch on 19 April.
• The fourth egg tried to hatch, but failed.
• Three healthy female chicks were banded on 16 May.
• They started to ledge-walk in late May and fledged on Memorial Day weekend.
• On June 1, one of them landed on the sidewalk and was returned to the nest to start over.
• Though not often at the Gulf Tower, Dori and Louie courted there in October.

Enjoy the show!  Click on any photo to see the slideshow in its own lightbox.

(photos from the National Aviary falconcam at Gulf Tower, Lori Maggio, John English and Kate St. John)

If you read my article about the Tarentum Peregrines On Ice last Sunday, you learned that Dave Brooke’s photos from Friday January 12 identified one of them as black/green 48/BR, banded at the Westinghouse Bridge in 2014.  That band size would typically mean it’s a female peregrine but we learned this week that the bird is male.  It was a group effort.

On Monday Art McMorris, PGC‘s Peregrine Coordinator, emailed us with news that, though the band is size 7A (for females), 48/BR was banded as “sex uncertain.”

“The bird’s weight was 660 g. and the measurements on its rectrices indicated an age of 23 days. That would indicate male, but the tarsus (leg) was snug in the size 6 (male) leg gauge, so that would indicate female. … To be safe, size 7A bands were used.”

Dave Brooke sent a few more photos including this super-zoomed version showing both of 48/BR’s bands.

I looked at this photo and thought, “Hmmm.” This bird has a white forehead above its beak which, in my limited experience, is a male trait.  And it’s choosing to nest a very short distance from where it hatched. Definitely a male trait.  So I looked harder at all the other photos.

Males are 1/3 smaller than females. With both birds on the ice I could see that the bird on the left is smaller.  Smaller = male.

Which bird flew?

I compared the icy surroundings of the larger right-hand bird in photo#1 to the surroundings of the stationary bird in photo#2.  This two-picture slideshow shows her surroundings don’t change.  The larger bird (female) stayed on the ice

After he flew the bird remaining on ice looked like this.  She’s large and bulky, a female trait.

Did the flying bird come past Dave and show 48/BR on its leg?  Dave said yes.  So 48/BR is the smaller bird = male.  But size is tricky.  This still wasn’t enough evidence for me.

Yesterday Rob Protz emailed us with some history from the Tarentum Bridge:  A banded juvenile-plumage male showed up in spring of 2015.

“The banded juvenile plumage male which showed up in Tarentum was first photographed by Steve Gosser on May 9, 2015, so the timing fits as a 2014 fledgling would still be in juvie plumage in spring of it’s second year. No juv plumage falcons have been seen (positively) since late summer of 2015.”

And then I looked at the fourth photo that Dave sent:  a peregrine with lots of dots on its breast, perched on the bridge.

This bird is clearly not 48/BR because he has a clear breast. This is his mate.

Last spring Steve Gosser photographed a pair mating at the Tarentum Bridge (below, cropped close). Notice that the male (in flight) is banded.  The female is unbanded with a dotted breast!

So 48/BR is male and is reflected as such in Art’s documentation.

Never a dull moment with peregrine falcons.

p.s. We may have seen this unbanded, dotted-breast female at Pitt last year on March 16.  She flew back to Tarentum to mate.

(all photos by Dave Brooke except for the mating peregrines photo by Steve Gosser)

Midday on Friday January 12, when it was unseasonably warm, Dave Brooke went down to the Tarentum Bridge and found a lot of ice flowing by on the Allegheny River.  He also found a pair of peregrines standing on it.

Soon, one of them took off and flew near him on its way up the river.

At the bird’s closest approach it revealed its bands — black/green 48/BR. They indicate he/she hatched at the Westinghouse Bridge in 2014, offspring of Hecla (Ironton-Russelton Bridge, 2009) and an unidentified male.  Click here for Banding Day photos.  48/BR is the one in the back.

Congratulations to Dave Brooke for capturing beautiful photos of these peregrines and for identifying one of them at the Tarentum Bridge!

UPDATE ON 15 JANUARY 2018!  News from Art McMorris indicates that band 48/BR is typically a female band but the sex of the bird was hard to determine at the time so Art used a female band just in case.  48/BR is male.  See January 17’s article:  Tarentum Peregrine 48/BR is Male

(photos by Dave Brooke)

p.s.  In case you’re wondering if Hope, the female peregrine at Pitt, will visit her old haunts in Tarentum, she’s probably too busy.   While Dave was photographing the new pair at the bridge, Hope and Terzo were courting at the Cathedral of Learning.

Let’s take a look back at last year’s peregrine season with a slideshow of Pitt nesting highlights.  (Click on any photo to open the slideshow in its own lightbox.)

2017 was a lot calmer at the Cathedral of Learning nest than the year before.  Fortunately there was only one dramatic incident: Hope’s abnormal behavior on April 25.  Here’s a summary:

• Hope and Terzo courted in February.
• She laid her first egg on March 15.
• During egg laying Hope often shouted at Terzo.  She ultimately laid four eggs.
• Abnormal behavior:  As the 1st egg began to hatch on April 25, Hope killed and ate the chick.
• The remaining three eggs hatched without incident. Hope and Terzo fed them well.
• One male and two female nestlings were banded on Banding Day, May 17.
• Alas, the male died when he hit a window at SEI on June 17.
• Alas again. On July 9, one of the females was found dead at the Allegheny County airport.
• In late December, Hope and Terzo bowed at the nest on Christmas Day.

The 2018 nesting season will be here soon.  Stay tuned at the National Aviary falconcam at the University of Pittsburgh.

(slideshow photos from the National Aviary falconcam at University of Pittsburgh and by Peter Bell, John English and Kate St. John)

Before peregrine nesting begins a few of us visit the Pitt and Gulf Tower nests to conduct routine maintenance.  Sometimes we have a lot to do — add gravel, clean the nestbox, fix the cameras — but this year the only thing needed was a cleanup of the weatherproof covers on the National Aviary’s falconcams.

Last week when Bob Mulvihill and I visited the Gulf Tower camera we didn’t see any peregrines.  Yesterday at Pitt we saw two!

It was 16 degrees when we ventured out on the ledge.  Phil Hieber took photos, Bob cleaned the cameras, and I brought my hiking stick to hold high as a substitute target for peregrine attacks (instead of attacking our heads).

We were surprised to see that Hope, the female peregrine, was waiting for us.  How did she know we were coming?

As Bob got closer, Hope flew off, then silently strafed back and forth as you can see on the video.

Soon Terzo joined her. He was silent, too.

In less than 3 minutes Bob was finished and we went back indoors.

Hope and Terzo are staying close to home this month.  They’re getting ready for nesting season, too.

p.s. This morning it’s 2 degrees F and windy so the wind chill makes it feel like -16.  Good thing we were out there yesterday.

(photos & video shot by Phil Hieber on Bob Mulvihill’s mobile)

13 December 2017

This is the last thing a pigeon wants to see … and sometimes it is.

On Monday I went down the Ohio River to find birds at Rochester Riverfront Park.  It was a disappointing trip for the most part with only the usual suspects — Canada geese, mallards and ring-billed gulls — until I looked at the big black railroad bridge that spans the Ohio River from Monaca to Beaver.  (Click on the photo below for a larger view of the bridge.)

There was a peregrine falcon at the top of the central tower … here.

As I watched, the peregrine flew off the tower flapping hard downriver.  She’d seen a second peregrine in the distance chasing a pigeon toward the bridge, and the pigeon was escaping.  She flew off to help her mate.

The peregrines corralled the pigeon in the air so it dove straight down to the water but one of them dove faster and hit it hard.  Dead or stunned, the prey fell in the water and started to float away.

I thought they’d lost their meal.   The peregines circled above the floating prey … and then the female flew low over river, skimmed the water with her talons, and picked it up.

Ta dah!  She flew back to the bridge to pluck and eat.  Here’s a very poor photo of her back while she was eating.

I’d never seen a peregrine grab prey out of the water.  It made my day.

And no, I didn’t take that in-flight photo at the top of this article. That’s Chad+Chris Saladin’s photo of “Keystone” hunting pigeons near a bridge at Heritage Park in Cleveland, Ohio.

(top photo by Chad+Chris Saladin, remaining photos by Kate St.John)

p.s. The peregrine pair nests at this bridge but their young are never banded because the site is inaccessible.  Where might they be nesting?  Look at the holes in the tower below the perch.  My guess is they nest in there.  Both towers have holes with whitewash below them.

Sometimes a peregrine falcon shows up in the most unlikely place.  This one was hanging out at the Landside Arrivals area at Pittsburgh International Airport.

On October 10 Ed Shott left a comment on my How Old Is That Peregrine? post.

My wife [Becky Shott] is an Allegheny County Police officer at the Pittsburgh International Airport. Yesterday [Oct 9, 2017], she saw an adult Peregrine Falcon on the public arrivals area sitting on a wall between the Landside Terminal and the parking garage. Using her cell phone, she got a video and several still pictures of the bird. She was not able to get close enough to see if there were any leg bands. She also said she has seen possibly the same bird for the past six months. It has made repeated passes around the area possibly trying to grab one of the numerous pigeons that roost in the steel beams. However, she has not seen any evidence of a nest.   — Ed Shott

When Becky sent her photos and video she wrote:

I was pretty close to this bird & could not see any bands. I have been seeing a peregrine (maybe more than one) around here for at least 6 months. Sometimes I see it chasing pigeons around the Landside terminal. Always a beautiful sight.

Indeed this is a gorgeous bird.  Here are more views of it on October 9, 2017.  And no, I don’t see any bands either, even when I zoomed in.

Wow!  This bird doesn’t seem to care that people are nearby as long as they don’t disturb it.

Many times at the airport I’ve thought about the large number of pigeons and starlings at the parking lots and garage, especially the huge flocks in winter.  But it never occurred to me that a peregrine would show up to eat them.

Thanks to the Shotts for alerting me to this peregrine.

If you’re waiting to be picked up at the airport, watch across the driveway for a peregrine falcon.  You never know what you’ll see.

(photos and video by Becky Shott)