2009 NESTING SEASONThe male at this plant is Leopold, now fourteen years old. He has been at this nest since 1997. Last year it was reported that Leopold had flown into a wire and had been euthanized; however, this was not the case. I believe that the falcon involved was Leopold's long-time mate, Raynie.
This year Leopold has a new mate. She is Millie, a daughter of Freedom and Purity of Port Colborne, Ontario, born in 2005. Freedom, of course, is a son of Mariah and Kaver in their first year together, born 2002. Millie's former mate is/was Swifty, a son of Freedom and Roosevelt of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Leopold is a brother of Erie, the former mate of Dorothy at the Cathedral of Learning in Pittsburgh.
Millie and Leopold had two babies this year, Heidi and Tyson. One of them appears to be missing:
We had 20 chicks born this year in SE Michigan (that we are aware of anyway), 17 of which lived long enough to attempt first flight and were successful (we lost all three chicks at 12 days of age from our Whittier Apartments site in Detroit - cause unknown), as of today (7-19-2009) we can account for 12 of these young Peregrines still alive (no carcasses have been found, however we are not able to find 2 at Blue Water Bridge, 1 at UofD Mercy, 1 at Monroe Powerplant, and our only Flint produced falcon 'Maize').webcam link:
http://www.geocities.com/macomb_audubon/Falcon_Page_2009.htm