Outside My Window

If you’ve been watching this blog for a while, you know that one of Pittsburgh’s peregrine falcon “sons” has spent the past 11 months in rehab.  Now, at last, Pittsburgh Pete has a permanent home.  This is quite a victory for Pete, and for Judy Bailey who rescued him.

Pete (black/green 3/K) was born at the Gulf Tower in 2006 and nested successfully at the Burlington Lift Bridge in 2008 but he was seriously injured in a battle with a rival that June.  Pete seemed to recover on his own but was found grounded and unable to fly in November 2008.

Since then Pete has been in the care of Judy Bailey, pictured with him here.  Judy is an Animal Control Officer in Hamilton so she could nurse him back to health but is not licensed to keep him.  When it was determined last May that Pete’s seizures prevented him from being released into the wild, Judy had to find him a permanent home.  Otherwise he would die. 

Over the summer Mountsberg Raptor Centre in Campbellville, Ontario offered to take Pete as an educational bird if he could sit quietly on the glove and tolerate people near him in an educational setting.  Pete didn’t know these skills so Judy trained him.  Thanks to her hard work and Pete’s ability to learn, he went to his permanent home at the Raptor Centre in late October.  Mountsberg is excited to have him.

Hooray for Pete and a big thank you to Judy Bailey!  She really is Pete’s guardian angel.

For more information on Pittsburgh Pete’s injury and recovery, see my blogs on August 5, 2008, December 4, 2008 and August 14, 2009.

(photo from Judy Bailey)

Sad news.

Yesterday the body of a young female peregrine born at the University of Pittsburgh this spring was found on the roof of Webster Hall.  The green tape on her USFW band indicated she was the same bird who’s eating in this picture taken by Kimberly Thomas on June 9.

Of the four peregrines hatched at Pitt this spring, she was the smallest female and the one who stayed closest to home.  She visited the nest box on June 29 long after her siblings had stopped going there.

When she was found she’d been dead for a while; her body had dried out.  The maintenance man at Webster Hall thought she may have died of carbon monoxide poisoning because he often saw her perched on a rooftop smokestack.  Alas, she chose a bad place to hang out.

Unfortunately she’s not the only juvenile peregrine from the Pittsburgh area to die this fall.  In early September I learned that one of the three young peregrines born at the Monaca bridge died on August 30 when he struck an airplane at Pittsburgh International Airport.  He was probably hunting the smaller birds attracted to the open area near the runways.

Research tells us that more than 60% of young peregrines die in their first year – many of them before they leave home – but it’s always sad to learn the details.

(photo by Kimberly Thomas)

For years people believed the holes in the jawbones of many Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons were evidence of fighting, even though they were too round and perfect for violent combat.  Recently paleontologists re-examined the holes with a new theory in mind and published their findings on PLoS One.

What lead them to the discovery was this thought:  Where have we seen holes like this before?  We’ve seen them on the jawbones of modern day birds of prey who suffered from a common avian parasitic infection called trichomonosis.

Raptors, including peregrine falcons, catch trichomonosis by eating diseased prey.  Peregrines are susceptible to it because they eat pigeons who carry the disease without showing symptoms.  Trichomonosis invades the mouth and throat causing lesions which eventually penetrate to the bone.  The lesions block the throat making it hard to swallow and the raptor dies of starvation. 

When the paleontologists compared the holes on the tyrant dinosaur jawbones to those of raptors who had trichomonosis, everything matched up.  The illustration at right shows how the infection would have looked on Tyrannosaurus rex with lesions both inside and outside mouth.  (Ewwww!)  Just like raptors, the tyrant dinosaurs would have caught it through feeding on diseased meat or by snout to snout contact. 

To me, the cool part of this discovery is that modern day birds are close enough to T.rex that they still suffer from a tyrant dinosaur disease. 

And it solved another mystery for me.  When peregrine falcon chicks are banded, the veterinarians always swab their throats with a long Q-tip to test for disease.  Now I know at least one of the diseases they’re looking for.

For more information on this discovery, click here or on the illustration to read the original article at PLoS ONE. 

(Illustration of trichomonosis in T.rex, based on photographs of living birds suffering from the disease and bird necropsies, by Chris Glen, The University of Queensland.  Article Citation: Wolff EDS, Salisbury SW, Horner JR, Varricchio DJ (2009) Common Avian Infection Plagued the Tyrant Dinosaurs. PLoS ONE 4(9): e7288. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0007288)

Yesterday morning the sun was warm and nothing of interest was going on.  Time for a snooze. 

Here’s Dorothy, the adult female peregrine falcon at the University of Pittsburgh, asleep in front of the webcam.  Watching her sleep makes me want to nap, too.

(photo from the National Aviary webcam at University of Pittsburgh)

If you’re anxious to watch nesting peregrines you’ll have to wait five more months to see them in Pittsburgh, but you don’t have to wait that long if you use the Internet. 

Thanks to the Alcoa Anglesea webcam you can watch them in Australia.  It’s spring there and the peregrines at Anglesea, Sheila and Havoc, have hatched their first egg. 

Anglesea is a town on Australia’s southern coast, 113km southwest of Melbourne.  Alcoa operates a smelter at nearby Point Henry.  Smelting requires a lot of electricity so they built a coal-fired power plant at Anglesea to provide the necessary “juice.”  In 2004, Alcoa’s employees placed a peregrine nestbox plus webcam on the power plant’s water tower.  A pair of peregrines claimed it as their own and the rest is history.

This year the webcam came online August 3, Sheila laid her first egg August 28, and the eggs started hatching October 2.  Here’s Sheila feeding her babies in a photo linked from the Alcoa Anglesea website.  By the time you read this most of her eggs, if not all, will have hatched.   

Watching the webcam will challenge your northern hemisphere assumptions.  For instance:

• Peregrines nesting in the fall?  No, Australia’s “March” is in our September. 
• Why is it always night on the camera?  Australia is on the other side of the world so it’s night there when it’s day here.  8:00am in Anglesea is 6:00pm in Pittsburgh.  It’s best to watch during our evening, but the date may confuse you.  Australia is a day ahead of us because they’re across the International Dateline.
• If you read about the nestbox on the Alcoa website you’ll notice it faces northeast.  Since peregrines prefer their nests to face the sun I thought this was backwards until I realized the equator is north of Anglesea just as it’s south of Pittsburgh.

So enjoy watching the peregrines in Australia. You’ll be in good company. Shelia and Havoc have devoted followers around the world.

(photo of peregrine falcon feeding her chicks, linked from the Alcoa Anglesea webcam)

In September local peregrine falcon activity is very quiet. 

Our only real news is this sad note: A juvenile peregrine born at the Monaca bridge this spring was found dead at Pittsburgh International Airport on August 31, killed by a plane.  He was probably hunting the many birds that pause on the huge, flat, open land at the airport.

Meanwhile, the adult peregrines at the University of Pittsburgh are staying close to home but aren’t visible very often.  Fortunately the webcam’s motion detector is able to capture them lounging on the perch, courting or flying away from the nestbox. 

This action shot is probably one of Dorothy, the adult female, as she leaves the scene. 

Dorothy has been visiting the nest box about once a day and E2 sometimes stops in for a courtship bow.  Click the image above to see an action shot of E2 jumping into the box to bow to her.

(photos from the National Aviary peregrine webcam at the University of Pittsburgh)

Kathy Braman sent me this recent webcam photo from the Times Square building in Rochester, New York.

This is Beauty, born at the University of Pittsburgh in 2007 and now living in Rochester with her mate, Archer.  She hasn’t nested yet because she was too busy this spring taking part in a territorial drama.  She fought with and injured the reigning queen, Mariah, who required treatment at Syracuse.  Mariah was released and returned to her favorite spot in Rochester, the Kodak Building, while Beauty and Archer appeared to nest in the gutter of Midtown, an unused building. 

Eventually Beauty and Archer stopped focusing on Midtown and came over to this fancy nest box on the Times Square building, complete with high definition webcam.  They’ve been seen courting here so if all goes well they’ll probably nest at this site next spring.

In the meantime Beauty visits the nest box to check out her new home.  In this picture it almost looks as if she’s reading the words written on the back wall of the box, “BSA Troop 134, Rush NY.”  Good for her.  It’s important to read the fine print.  

(photo from the main camera at the Times Square building, Rochester, NY)

Pittsburgh Pete, as he was nicknamed in Canada, has been through a lot in his three years.  He was born at Pittsburgh’s Gulf Tower in 2006 and flew to Burlington, Ontario where he nested successfully at the Lift Bridge in 2008.  At the end of that nesting season he was gravely injured by a rival peregrine.  He recovered from that injury but was attacked again, lost his nest site and nearly lost his life.  He ended up in rehab last November at the aviary of Judy Bailey, an Animal Control Officer for the City of Hamilton, Ontario. 

Though he’s received the best of medical care Pete has never fully recovered from his injuries.  He has no detectable head or wing injury but he has seizures so he can’t be released into the wild. 

As soon as his health improved Judy tried to find Pete a permanent home but it was hard to place him because of his seizures.  His luck turned recently when Mountsberg Conservation in Campbellville, Ontario said they would take him for their Bird of Prey education program if he will sit quietly on the glove.  All Pete has to do is learn a new skill and get clearance from Canada’s Ministry of Natural Resources.

To be an educational bird Pete needs to accept human contact from his trainers and tolerate humans nearby, so Judy is teaching him how.  She writes, “He took to being tethered remarkably well!  The day after I jessed him, he walked about a foot to my glove, latched on with one foot and ate the quail. By the 3rd or 4th day he hopped onto the glove and ate. Within a few days I was able to pet his feet, legs and belly. He’s not thrilled but he tolerates it. He will still get a bit antsy, at times, when I get close to the perch/booth, however, he quickly settles and eyes the glove. He’ll get very vocal with me at times!!  …Incidentally, I have not witnessed a seizure since he has been tethered!!”

This is great news because Pete’s future hangs on his ability learn these lessons.  I think he can do it.  Pete’s a very resilient bird. 

(photo by Judy Bailey)

The peregrine nesting season is over in Pittsburgh but the babies have just fledged in Youngstown, Ohio. 

The season is late for Youngstown’s peregrines because the parents had to pick a new site when they were blocked from using their longtime nest on the Stambaugh Building.  They tried to nest on a bank building but the attempt failed.  Finally they chose the fourth floor of the Mahoning County Courthouse and Stellar laid eggs on the 18th-20th of May.  The young were banded on July 17th. 

Ohio names their peregrines at banding and, in a tribute to their courthouse home, the three nestlings received “legal” names:  Freedom, Justice and Tort.   All three fledged last weekend.

I know all this because my friend Karen Lang keeps close track of them on the CMNH Falcon Forums.  Stammy, the father bird, was born at the University of Pittsburgh and his fledglings are Dorothy’s “grandkids.”  Sadly, Freedom was found dead on the Market Street Bridge last Sunday — hit by a car. 

I checked the Youngstown Falcon Forum to find out more.  The other two fledglings are fine and I found a bonus.  Chad and Chris Saladin photographed “Tort” as she practiced flying and landing on the second floor balcony of the Courthouse.  Back and forth she flew and hopped.  Click on her picture to watch her practice.

What an intense look of concentration she has on her face! 

(All photos by Chad and Chris Saladin.  The slideshow loops, the action repeats.)

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The major studios have come out with their summer action flicks.  Now I have one too. 

Nine weeks ago I spent my lunch hours at Schenley Plaza waiting for the peregrines to fledge at the University of Pittsburgh.  On June 2nd WQED’s Web intern, Christa Majoras, came to Fledge Watch with a video camera and recorded the event.  Then she edited it into a short video which I’ve saved as a treat for you today.  (OK, I’ll admit it.  I didn’t have time until now to learn the Flash plug-in.)

Click the Play button above to see the results.  If you don’t know what I look like, now you will.  I’m the one with the hat and sunglasses who’s talking all the time. 

Special thanks to Linda, Libby and Betsy for being part of this video. 

p.s. for after the movie:  The Jersey shore is only part of the answer.  They also go here.

p.p.s.  See the new Peregrine FAQ on fledge watching.