Peregrine falcon Terminator returns to UND water tower
By: Brad Dokken / Northlands Outdoors / April 8, 2014
Terminator, a female peregrine falcon that has been nesting in Grand Forks since 2008, has returned to the UND water tower and is awaiting a male companion. Dave Lambeth of the Grand Cities Bird Club confirmed the female’s identity Monday in an online post on the club’s Listserv. Tim Driscoll, a Grand Forks raptor expert, said he first saw the falcon at the water tower site late Sunday afternoon and suspected it was Terminator because she had a silver band on her left leg and a colored band on her right. Typically, Driscoll said, banded falcons have colored bands on their left legs and silver bands on their right. Lambeth was able to get a good look at the bands Monday.
Driscoll said Terminator was feeding atop the UND water tower Monday morning. “She looks like she belongs there,” he said. “She looks like she’s settling in."
Driscoll said the timing of Terminator’s appearance wasn’t a surprise because Saturday and Sunday were big days for migrating birds. Terminator first showed up on the Grand Forks falcon scene in 2008 as a 2-year-old hatched in Brandon, Man. She has returned in late March or early April every spring since, and Lambeth said the first Terminator sightings in Grand Forks are April 9, 2008; April 10, 2009; March 27, 2010; April 7 or 8, 2011; March 26, 2012; March 26, 2013; and April 6 this year.
Last year’s mate wasn’t banded and was Terminator’s third partner, Lambeth said. If a male shows up, this will be her seventh nesting season in Grand Forks. Driscoll said he expects Terminator then would begin laying eggs sometime between May 1 and May 5. “At this point, we’re thrilled about Terminator and we’re waiting for a male to show up,” Driscoll said.
All about Eve
In related peregrine news, “Eve,” a Grand Forks-hatched peregrine produced by Terminator in 2011, has been spotted in the Twin Cities. According to Driscoll, the falcon, named after local birder Eve Freeberg, was found injured last spring in St. Paul from what appeared to be a territorial dispute. She spent several days at the University of Minnesota Raptor Center before being released in Alexandria, Minn.
Driscoll said he got a report last week that Eve is paired with a male peregrine at Lock and Dam No. 1 on the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, where she appears to have replaced a female falcon that formerly used the site and which died this past winter. “In other words, there’s an opening at the nest site,” Driscoll said. “The report I got was from the person watching the nest, and they have a positive ID on the band number, so one of our babies made it and is starting to nest.”
According to the Midwest Peregrine Falcon Restoration Project’s website, peregrines were decimated by pesticide use in the 1950s and 1960s, but populations have been recovering since the 1980s, thanks to efforts such as the first Midwest release in 1982. Grand Forks and Fargo have the only known nesting peregrines in North Dakota, while Minnesota has 53 nesting sites across the state, the Department of Natural Resources said.