RCF has been keeping a close eye on Wingo Starr since he arrived. He’s a very handsome bird and he seems to like having his photo taken by RCF which is great because it isn’t easy to take photos from street level even for RCF who has it down to a fine art after all these years! So having a bird who will be help by roosting and perching in “viewable” locations is such a bonus!
As an added bonus for RCF today was that Wingo had a friend a-visiting. A lady friend. A lady friend that isn’t Hurricane his mate for the last couple of years. RCF wasn’t expecting to see a second bird because Hurricane doesn’t usually arrive until the beginning of April. But it also wasn’t totally unheard of, a couple of females have appeared in previous years before Hurricane’s return but they don’t last long once the Grand Dame of Brandon glides in. A couple/few years ago we have had an unbanded female turn up and show a great deal of interest in the nestbox and we hoped she would move over to the Tower nestsite, but no such luck. This year we again have a younger unbanded female visiting the McKenzie Seeds nestbox. Looking at RCF’s photo, not likely a hatch from last year, more likely the year before or a couple of years before. That’s good news, more likely to be able to nest successfully if she is a couple of years old. Unbanded means we don’t know who she is, but it could very well be that she is one of the peregrines we haven’t been able to band in the last few years. If I were asked for a best guess I’d say a Brandon bird returning home. Why? We haven’t to-date had any birds from Saskatchewan or Alberta nest in the province and our US birds usually come from North Dakota or Minnesota – only Madame came from further away, she was from Iowa. So while it could be a bird from one of the northern states, we really don’t get many of them – more likely to be a Manitoba bird. And over the last few years we haven’t been able to band the Brandon chicks (as much as we’d like to!!!) because of health and safety reasons inside McKenzie Seeds. So an unbanded female turns up at this nestbox bang on time in the spring, there is a good chance she’s been here/been by here before and it is possible that this is her hatch site. No way for us to know for sure however, so if she stays, we will try to get lots of photos of her so that we have a better chance of identifying her in the future – whether she nests here or somewhere else.
Does this mean we have given up on Hurricane? No, she has never been an early returnee, so she isn’t late home yet. And if she is late home, it wouldn’t be the first time she has evicted females from her territory. But Hurricane isn’t a young bird – if she returns this year she will be fourteen years old and will have been the resident female at McKenzie Seeds for twelve years. So while we are realistic, we are still hopeful to see Hurricane again.