Manitoba Peregrines > UND, Grand Forks, North Dakota

UND Tower - 2014 / Marv & Terminator

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The Peregrine Chick:
Falcon hatched last year in Fargo courts older female atop UND water tower
By: Brad Dokken / INFORUM / April 26, 2014

GRAND FORKS - A brewing romance is underway high atop the University of North Dakota water tower, but it’s too soon to say whether love in the air leads to eggs in the nest. Terminator, a female peregrine falcon that has been nesting in Grand Forks since 2008, has a male suitor that showed up early this week and has been identified as “Marv,” a peregrine hatched last spring in Fargo and banded by Grand Forks raptor expert Tim Driscoll.  Local birder Dave Lambeth got a photo of Marv on the water tower Friday confirming the band number as H/72.  Despite their age difference, Terminator is showing signs of warming up to her new, young suitor, but so far, it’s more of a waiting game than a mating game. Yearling peregrines don’t commonly mate.

Getting acquainted

“After watching this morning, they do seem to be doing everything we’d expect,” Lambeth said Friday. “I haven’t seen mating yet. Maybe it’s just a matter of getting acquainted and taking a few days for hormone levels to get right. I think they’ll try.”

Driscoll, who also has been watching the attempted courtship, said he’s encouraged by what he’s seen so far. While not common, it’s not unheard of for immature males to mate with older females, he said. “She’s still tolerating him,” Driscoll said. “We’ll have to see. If he doesn’t pull it off this year, I suspect he’ll come back next year.” The next few days will tell the tale, the birders said.

“If we see copulation, and she starts incubating, I think it’s a good Bingo,” Driscoll said. “It’s up to her. He’s a first-year guy so he’s still learning. We’re well within the range to do this. I think the next week will be very telling.”

Mate No. 4?

For those keeping score, Lambeth said Marv will be Terminator’s fourth mate if their union transpires.  Terminator, who returned to the UND water tower April 6, was hatched in Brandon, Man., and first showed up in Grand Forks in 2008 as a 2-year-old. Including Marv, three of her suitors were from Fargo, Lambeth said; last year’s male wasn’t banded so his origin isn’t known.

If they don’t mate, neither Lambeth nor Driscoll could say whether Terminator will stay or fly the coop. “She might stick around for awhile, but that’s just a guess,” Lambeth said. “I don’t know.”

Peregrines have been on the rebound since the 1980s after pesticides decimated their populations. Grand Forks and Fargo have the only known nesting peregrines in North Dakota, while Minnesota has more than 50 nest sites across the state.

The Peregrine Chick:
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.

The Peregrine Chick:
Terminator is back again this year and she has a new man, another male from Fargo by the name of Marv.  He's very young, he hatched in 2013, so I'm not sure that there will be a nest this year, our experience with males is that at 11 months old, he's too young, but who knows.  Terminator may get a year to just relax and replenish her resources - and Marv couldn't have a better teacher.

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