Manitoba Peregrines > UND, Grand Forks, North Dakota

UND Tower - 2014 / Marv & Terminator

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Kinderchick:
WOW! That IS amazing! I didn't remember that Marv was just barely a year old! :o

The Peregrine Chick:
Well done Marv - barely a year old and he's a dad!! That doesn't happen often - males mostly are 3 or more years old when they first nest successfully.  But then Marv is one of Annie in Fargo's kids so maybe we should have expected miraculous things  ;)

Alison:
Terminator and her new young mate Marv raised two chicks this year. The chicks, named Maya and Myra, were banded on July 3.

An annual ritual for GF peregrines - This year’s brood of falcon chicks get tracking bands



Photo by Luke Franke.

Tim Driscoll smiled as he carefully held a fluffy 23-day-old peregrine falcon up for a crowd of about 20 people at UND.

“Ok, I’m going to show her around to everybody once and then she’s going back home,” he said.

The group gathered to watch climbers climb UND’s water tower, home to one of two peregrine-falcon nests in the state.

The two recently-hatched chicks from the UND tower were brought down in a small kennel so Driscolls and other bird experts can determine their gender, put bands on them so they can be tracked throughout their lives and take a blood sample.

The chicks squawked loudly as everyone watched Driscoll take measurements.

“I should have named this one ‘Quiet’,” Driscoll joked with the crowd.

This is the seventh year Driscoll has been tracking the once endangered birds. He names them each year after prominent Grand Forks residents and other important people.

This year’s chicks were named Maya, after the recently deceased poet Maya Angelou, and Myra, after North Dakota pioneer John Myra.

The proud parents are Terminator, a female from Canada who has nested frequently in the area over the last few years, and Marv, a first-time father from the Fargo area.

Nathan Reitan and Nick Kludt were the climbers charged with collecting the birds and while Marv didn’t make an appearance, Terminator wasn’t happy about their presence.

“She was kind of dive-bombing us,” Reitan said, laughing as he climbed back down the water tower.

http://www.grandforksherald.com/content/annual-ritual-gf-peregrines-years-brood-falcon-chicks-get-tracking-bands

The Peregrine Chick:
Haven't heard anything from this site but their eggs should be hatching about the same time as the Radisson and McKenzie Seeds sites.  I've got an email into our contact in Grand Forks for news when he has it.  They don't have a camera and not easy vantage points for "peaking" into the nestbox (or at least no ones they use), so we may not find out anything more until a fuzzy head peaks up over the edge of the nestbox or the adults are obviously feeding something in there.

The Peregrine Chick:
Raptor expert observes Grand Forks peregrines mating
By Brad Dokken / Grand Forks Herald / Apr 30, 2014

It looks as if Grand Forks will be doing its part to add to the recovering peregrine falcon population.

A year-old male dubbed “Marv” when he was banded last spring in Fargo showed up at the UND water tower about 10 days ago to court “Terminator,” a female peregrine that has nested in Grand Forks since 2008.  Terminator was hatched in 2006 in Brandon, Man., and showed up in Grand Forks as a 2-year-old. Despite their age difference and the fact male peregrines don’t always mate their first year, Terminator was showing signs of accepting Marv from the get-go.  Now, the pair has copulated.

Tim Driscoll, a Grand Forks raptor expert who teaches a class in raptor ecology at the University of Minnesota-Crookston, said he observed Marv copulating with Terminator late Tuesday afternoon. Driscoll banded Marv last spring.  “Although a few weeks late, this is great news,” Driscoll said in an email. “Hopefully, Terminator will start laying eggs within a few days.”  Driscoll said the female falcon in Fargo, which has the only other known peregrine nest in North Dakota, laid her first egg April 16. “If Terminator starts laying eggs within the next week we will be about three weeks behind Fargo,” Driscoll said. “We are normally about two weeks later.”

In other words, so far, so good.

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