In years past, Pitt peregrine watchers were used to seeing a very messy nest on camera. Dorothy, the previous resident female, usually plucked prey at the nest soon after she was done brooding.  In those years the nest normally looked like this.

This year the nest has been amazingly clean … until yesterday.  At 6:45am Terzo brought a black-feathered prey item to the nest.  Hope took it from him and plucked it while C1 watched.  (It was a male red-winged blackbird.)

I finally figured out there’s a good reason for making a mess.  C1 will soon be old enough to eat on his own and will need to know how to pluck prey and tear it up. The best way to learn is by watching. Yesterday Hope showed him by example.

By the end of the month C1 will be grabbing the food and plucking it himself.  In the meantime I’m sure he’ll watch more food preparation demonstrations.

Breakfast is served.

(photos from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)

C1, the lone chick at the Pitt peregrine nest, is eating well and growing fast.  Here’s how much he’s grown in one week: May 8 to May 15.

May 8, 2016

May 15, 2016

What a difference!

(photos from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)

Last week Lori Maggio visited Third Avenue between Wood and Smithfield to take photos of the Downtown peregrines.   Look closely and you can see that both birds are banded.  Unfortunately we can’t read the bands yet.

Though we’re not sure of this pair’s identity, the choice of nest site on a ledge on Third Ave leads me to believe the female is still Dori.

My guess is that the bird pictured below is the male.  Is this Louie? We don’t know. Louie is 14 years old now — quite old for a peregrine — so it’s possible he was replaced by a new male.

Both adults like to perch on the turquoise-colored “shields” on top of Wood Street Commons.

The adults go in and out of the nest with food, indicating there are young at the nest.

We won’t know how old the nestlings are until they appear at the edge of the opening.

(photos by Lori Maggio)

Most of us have never seen peregrines nesting at wild cliffs so it’s a real pleasure to find this excellent video from Hokkaido, Japan showing a pair nesting by the sea.

Click on the screenshot above to watch peregrines’ family life as the chicks grow up from ages two to five weeks.

Here’s what you’ll see:

• The male chases dense flocks of birds to separate out a single bird and capture it.
• 1st feeding, chicks 2 weeks old (This is C1’s age today at Pitt):  The male brings food close to the nest but not into it. The female leaves the nest to take the prey and carries it back to the nest to feed the chicks.  If you were watching this feeding on a nestcam you would not see the male at all and might mistakenly think the female does all the hunting.  Nope.
• 2nd feeding, chicks 3 weeks old:  The chicks have full crops showing as gray bulges on their throats. This is a sign they are well fed.  (You can see this bulge already on C1’s throat when he is full.)  The chicks are not very hungry so after their mother eats she takes away the leftovers to cache them.
• 3rd feeding, chicks 4 weeks old: The chicks are half brown with growing feathers.  They rush at their parents to grab the food and eat it on their own.
• Ledge walking and learning to fly, 5 weeks old:  One chick flaps and lands at the bottom of the cliff in the water.  Notice that he can swim!  He gets out of the water and climbs the cliff.  🙂

Nestcams see such a tiny piece of birds’ lives that you might misunderstand what’s going on.

Peregrines are fascinating when you watch them from the ground.

(screenshot from video by Eduence Field Production, Ltd)

11 May 2016

Congratulations to Lori Maggio whose search for perching peregrines has paid off.  She found the nest site of the Downtown peregrines!

Lori walks to and from her workplace at the USX Tower and often walks at lunchtime so when I asked folks to look for peregrines Downtown, she decided to help.

It was a fruitless effort until Monday May 9 when she found a peregrine perched on a high railing at Point Park’s Lawrence Hall. Later that day she stopped by and a peregrine was perched there again.

Then yesterday, May 10, she saw a peregrine take food to the nest!  Both adults went into the nest and came out after about 30 seconds.  Are the young old enough to feed themselves?  If so we should be seeing them at the nest opening soon.

If you’d like to help watch for activity, visit Third Avenue between Smithfield and Wood Streets.  Heading down Third Avenue (it’s one way), pause at the parking lot that runs between Third and Fourth Avenues.  Facing Wood Street, look up to the right and you’ll see a building that looks like this.

Look for activity at the opening, as shown in the top photo, and let me know if you see a chick. We won’t know when to have Fledge Watch until we know how old the chicks are.

Thank you, Lori!  So glad you found the nest!

(photos by Kate St. John)

This afternoon as Hope and Terzo’s last egg began to hatch, Hope picked the new chick out of its shell, ate part of it, and fed the rest to her only remaining chick, C1.

All four of Hope’s eggs hatched but there is only one chick to show for it. On April 29 she killed and ate the second chick (C2) feeding part of it to C1. C3 hatched on April 30 but he never thrived. (Some of you speculated that she didn’t fed him adequately even though there is plenty of food.)

Hours after C3 died Hope fed him to C1. And now she has killed and eaten C4, again feeding him to C1.

We don’t know why Hope is doing this. Perhaps her situation will prompt biologists to study her case. In the meantime we can only wonder.

Needless to say her actions are distressing, so turn off the nestcam if it upsets you.

This is very abnormal behavior!!

p.s. I have no predictions on what she’ll do next. I have no idea how the season will end.

As we watch the chicks at the Cathedral of Learning peregrine nest, some of you wonder if they’re getting enough to eat.  Others think Terzo isn’t hunting because Hope always brings the food to the nest.

THIS IS FIXED! An Internet problem: We couldn’t see the nestcam on the Aviary website. THIS IS FIXED!

Here are some Peregrine FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) that explain what’s going on.

• Click here to read how the chicks are getting enough to eat.
• Is Terzo hunting? Yes! Why does Hope bring in all the food?  See Parental roles.

There’s a lot going on.

p.s. Have a question about peregrines? Check my Peregrine FAQs page for lots more information.

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

Last night at 9:30pm the third egg hatched at the Cathedral of Learning peregrine nest. Hope immediately ate the egg shell. She did not eat the chick.

This morning there are two nestlings and one egg, as seen in this screenshot when Hope and Terzo did a nest exchange.

All is well.

Welcome to the world, C3.

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