Outside My Window

I captured this photo on the Pitt peregrine webcam today and my first reaction was “They’re soooo cute!” 

These three little white birds are 12-day-old peregrine falcon chicks, Dorothy and E2’s nestlings at University of Pittsburgh.  They’re in the cute downy phase before they start to grow feathers. 

Such bright-eyed babies!  I’m amazed at how white they are.  Even their beaks are white.  And their feet are so large that they sit like little Buddhas with their toes in front of them. 

I can tell they ate recently.  There’s a bulge at the top of their chests showing their crops are full.  (Many birds have crops, a muscular expandable section of the esophagus where they store food prior to digestion.) 

Soon these babies will get sleepy and sprawl flat on their bellies.  

Eating, sleeping, growing.  That’s all they’re going to do until early June when they’re ready to ledge-walk and learn to fly. 

I’ve watched the peregrines at University of Pittsburgh for many years and have learned something about Dorothy, the falcon who nests there: she is not the best of housekeepers. When she has chicks to feed, cleaning her nest is a low priority.

This trait is individual to Dorothy’s “personality.” If you observe other peregrine nests on webcams, you’ll see that the gravel is usually pretty tidy.

Until yesterday I had hopes Dorothy had changed her ways. Perhaps E2 was having a positive influence. As recently as Wednesday evening the gravel was clean (see photo, top right).

Not so on Thursday! It rained all day and Dorothy gave up. In the second photo the nest is carpeted in prey feathers and the chicks are surrounded by a mess. As my friend Kate says, “Well, that’s what happens when you have young kids.”

Beth Fife of the Pennsylvania Game Commission will have her work cut out for her when she comes to band the chicks this spring. Every year Beth not only has to collect the chicks while Dorothy attacks, but she must drag a garbage bag out on the ledge and clean Dorothy’s nest.

For now, it looks like another messy year. Perhaps Dorothy thinks that Beth provides room service. (NOT!)

It’s been a week since 3 peregrine eggs hatched at the University of Pittsburgh and their parents have been feeding them frequently. 

Have the nestlings grown?  Here’s a visual comparison.

At left are two photos from the webcam, exactly the same size.  The top photo shows the chicks on the day they hatched, the bottom one shows them today. 

Indeed, they have grown.  Each chick is two or three times larger than the remaining egg and the group of chicks takes up a noticably larger portion of the picture. 

Meanwhile the unhatched egg is already a week beyond its probable hatch date.  This egg is unlikely to hatch at all, but don’t worry.  In the seven years Dorothy has nested at Pitt she always lays 4 eggs but about 40% of the time she hatches only 3 of them. 

This outcome is normal.  Eventually one of the adults will move the unhatched egg out of the way.  

At the rate the chicks are growing, they’ll need all the space they can get!

Watch the peregrines in action on the National Aviary webcam. 

Several people have asked me why birds of prey, especially red-tailed hawks and peregrines, would choose to nest close to humans. Isn’t it unnatural? Doesn’t it make them tame? Are the ones who nest on buildings already tame?

In the case of peregrines, whom I know better than red-tails, I can tell you it never makes them tame. To them, we are still their mortal enemies. Instead, conscious or not they have made a calculation: The enemy of my enemy is my friend… and besides, there’s lots to eat.

Birds of prey know that humans can and do hurt them but they also know from personal experience that it is rare. Meanwhile, they have learned there’s an advantage in being near humans because we keep their other enemies away.

A good example is that great-horned owls, a dangerous predator of peregrines, are rarely if ever found on office buildings. Peregrines who nest on buildings have one less worry as they raise their young.

Another advantage is the food we generate. Humans create a lot of garbage and many prey species eat it. For red-tailed hawks, we indirectly provide rodents. For peregrines, our buildings house pigeons and starlings, a ready food supply.

When their nests are successful their hunch about us is reinforced. The juvenile peregrine in the picture is a case in point. She was born in downtown Pittsburgh on the Gulf Tower in April 2007. Her parents made the calculation that the territory was safe with plentiful food and they successfully raised four young birds. As you can see, she was thriving last July when her picture was taken by Matt Frederick as she perched on Roberto Capriotti’s windowsill at K&L Gates in the Oliver Building.

If these birds can put up with seeing humans every day, the rest is easy.

p.s. I wish she’d landed on my windowsill… but if she had, I would have been unable to concentrate for the rest of the day!

Now that the eggs are hatching at University of Pittsburgh, we have two sets of hungry baby peregrines.

On the left:

At Gulf Tower, Tasha2 stopped brooding the chicks long enough for Barbara Simon to capture two good photos.

In the first picture, you can see the two unhatched eggs on the gravel next to the two chicks. The chicks certainly have grown! These two eggs will not hatch at this point and will eventually be moved aside by the adult birds.

In the second picture, Louie brings food for the family. He will tear it into tiny pieces and drop it into the chick’s mouths.

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On the right:

E2 watches from the perch while Dorothy brings food to their first chick.

Click on the photo to see a slide show of Dorothy, E2 and their first nestling of 2008.

You can watch both webcams at the National Aviary website.

For more of my peregrine blogs, click here.

This morning at 8:07am I got a call from my friend Karen Lang.  She saw an eggshell next to Dorothy so we knew the eggs had begun hatching at the University of Pittsburgh peregrine falcon nest.  Congratulations to Dorothy and E2!

When Karen first saw the shell it was a perfect half shell.  As I write, the shell is no longer visible because Dorothy ate it.  However I’ve included two snapshots.

The first one shows what’s left of the shell at 8:37am after Dorothy already ate part of it.

The second snapshot shows E2 arriving to see the eggs hatching.  You can see a little bit of shell next to Dorothy’s shoulder.

I hope to see the chicks soon on the National Aviary’s webcam.

I believe the peregrine falcon eggs will hatch soon at Pitt. Compared to last week, Dorothy is spending more time incubating than E2. In this picture she seems to be telling him, “Get up! It’s my turn.” She has years of experience hatching eggs while this may be his first year as a dad.

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And maybe - just maybe - the photo at right shows some pips (dents) in the eggs. If so, the chicks are starting the exhausting job of breaking the shells.

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Pictures are worth a thousand words.

Here are two snapshots from the Gulf Tower peregrine nest on Tuesday afternoon April 22, thanks to Jamie Sehrer and Joanna Steward. 

In the first you can see the two chicks who hatched on April 20 and two eggs still waiting to hatch.  The baby birds are so tiny and weak they can barely hold their heads above the eggs.  In the second picture, Tasha2 arrives to feed them. 

The chicks cannot regulate their body temperature yet so Tasha will brood them for about 7-8 days.  A brooding mother bird looks a lot like she’s incubating.  The purpose is the same - to keep the babies warm.

I’m sure you’re beginning to wonder how much longer the peregrine falcons must incubate their eggs.  It’s been going on a long time and they aren’t done yet.  So when’s the happy day?

Peregrine eggs hatch around 33 days after incubation begins, but I have never been good about noticing when the parent birds switch from standing over the eggs to incubating them.  (This switch occurs when two or three eggs have been laid - not after the first one.)

I do, however, keep records of first egg dates and hatch dates so I can give you a rough idea of what to expect based on past history.

At Gulf Tower, Tasha laid her first egg on March 11.  Her eggs usually hatch 39-42 days later so this year’s clutch will probably hatch between April 19 and 22.  Start watching the Gulf Tower webcam this weekend for new baby birds.   News flash April 20:  Tasha2’s eggs began to hatch this afternoon!

At Pitt, Dorothy laid her first egg on March 23.  Her eggs usually hatch 38-40 days later so we can expect to see her first babies between April 30 and May 2.

Of course, just as with human babies, you can never predict exactly when they will be born.

Meanwhile, what is Dorothy doing? 

For those of you watching the Pitt webcam yesterday afternoon you may have seen the adult female peregrine do something strange.  She fanned out and hunched over (picture at left).

Dorothy was sunbathing.  There are various theories as to why birds sunbathe ranging from eradicating parasites to straightening their feathers.  They also might do it because it feels good.  “Ahhhh”, says Dorothy, “nice heat on my back.”

Erie, the original male peregrine at University of Pittsburgh, is gone but not forgotten.  He lives on in the falcons he fathered - Pitt peregrine alumni who now live elsewhere. 

This beautiful picture is Erie’s son Stammy.  Born on the Cathedral of Learning in 2003, he’s nested in Youngstown, Ohio since 2005.  In Pennsylvania we don’t name peregrines when they’re banded, so he wasn’t known as Stammy until he got to Youngstown where he was named for the building he calls home.

Thanks to this photo from Chad & Chris Saladin, we’re able to read Stammy’s bands and learn two things:  where this bird was born and that he’s alive and well.

Photos like this - in which we can read the bands - are how we keep track of peregrines.  Based on bird band reports we know Erie & Dorothy’s children and grandchildren range from Pittsburgh to Michigan.  The ones who’ve established homes are:

• Louie: born in 2002, nests at the Gulf Tower in Pittsburgh.
• Stammy (pictured): born in 2003, nests in Youngstown, Ohio.
• Hathor: born in 2003, nests in Mt. Clemens, Michigan.
• Belle:  born in 2003, nests in the bell tower at University of Toledo, Ohio.
• Maddy: born in 2004, nests on the I-480 bridge near Cleveland, Ohio.
• Bo:  grandson of Dorothy & Erie, born at Gulf Tower in 2005, nests on a bridge over the Allegheny River near Pittsburgh.

Quite a growing alumni organization!