Manitoba Peregrines > UND, Grand Forks, North Dakota
UND Tower - 2015 / Marv & Terminator
Alison:
Malala will be coming home today!
Malala taking a bath on July 5; she is a beauty. photo by Dave Lambeth.
Grounded peregrine chick returning to Grand Forks after visit to Raptor Center
By Brad Dokken
A Grand Forks peregrine chick taken to The Raptor Center in St. Paul last week after being found unable to fly has gotten a clean bill of health and will be returned to Grand Forks on Wednesday to be released near the UND water tower where she was hatched.
Local raptor expert Tim Driscoll on Tuesday said Raptor Center staff ran tests on the young female named Malala and could find no signs of injury or disease. Driscoll, who banded the chick in June, dubbed her after Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who won a Nobel Peace Prize after surviving an assassination attempt aboard a school bus for defying the Taliban's ban on girls attending school.
Driscoll routinely names the peregrine chicks he bands. The UND water tower has the only peregrine nest in Grand Forks and is one of only two in the state; the other is in Fargo.
Malala was one of four peregrines—two males and two females—hatched this spring atop the UND water tower. Driscoll said she has been flying fine during trials at the Raptor Center.
"They wouldn't let her go if she didn't," Driscoll said. "They are anxious to get her back with her parents. She's not completely independent yet. She's off on her own hunting but probably still being fed by her parents while learning to hunt."
Driscoll said a local birder will meet a volunteer from the Raptor Center this morning in Alexandria, Minn., where Malala will switch vehicles for the remainder of the trip to Grand Forks. If all goes according to plan, she'll be released sometime midafternoon, he said.
Still a mystery, Driscoll said, is why Malala couldn't fly when she was found Aug. 3 by a police officer near the new UND Medical School building. Two peregrine chicks displayed similar symptoms in 2013, and Raptor Center staff found nothing wrong with either.
"I don't know what to think of that," Driscoll said.
It's possible, he said, that the chicks just became temporarily ill for some reason, similar to when humans catch a flu bug; humans with the flu don't feel much like moving either.
"It's almost like they're saying, 'I'm not going to fly, you can't make me,' " Driscoll said. "The Raptor Center said she is fine, and they're tough down there.
"I just hope we hear about this bird two years from now."
http://www.grandforksherald.com/outdoors/3815599-grounded-peregrine-chick-returning-grand-forks-after-visit-raptor-center
I hope everything will go well for Malala from now on. I also hope that her siblings will turn up.
The Peregrine Chick:
I will be very surprised if the female chick became a meal for its siblings - not something peregrines typically do - particularly chicks with a parent as experienced as Terminator. I only know of one report of "cannabalism" by peregrines and it occurred at a nest or a couple of nests along a section of shoreline on the Great Lakes. They found that because of the lack of prey in the area, nests with more than two chicks were more likely to fail completely but that nests with two chicks could survive. And in one of those nests, on one occasion, the researchers witnessed the chicks eating another chick. Or at least that is how I remember the article - I'm going to have to go find it now in my records to be sure.
In any case, I will be very surprised if they find that something similar has happened at the Grand Forks site given the dearth of available prey and two experienced parents, one exceedingly so.
I've contacted Tim in Grand Forks so hopefully I will hear back soon ... or when they get up to the nestbox next ... or when someone spots Helen sitting pretty on a nearby building one morning ...
Alison:
Just found another article, from August 4, which has some additional information.
Grand Forks peregrine chick taken to Raptor Center
By Brad Dokken
One of the four peregrine chicks hatched this spring atop the UND water tower was on Tuesday taken to the Raptor Center in St. Paul, and a second chick is believed to be dead.
Tim Driscoll, the Grand Forks raptor expert who banded the peregrines in June, said Malala, a female chick, was found Monday by the new UND Medical School building unable to fly, and he picked her up later that afternoon.
Driscoll named the bird after after Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who won a Nobel Peace Prize after surviving an assassination attempt aboard a school bus for defying the Taliban's ban on girls attending school.
On Tuesday, Driscoll drove Malala to Alexandria, Minn., where another driver picked up the chick for the second leg of the trip to St. Paul. Driscoll said the peregrine appeared to be favoring her right wing but was able to flap it.
She was "really frisky," despite being unable to fly, he said.
"She's aggressive," he said while en route to Alexandria, Minn. "She doesn't like Springsteen music or the Eagles," both of which apparently were playing on Driscoll's car stereo.
"Sometimes they have a strained wing or a bruised wing" and recover in a few days, he said.
Likely casualty
The news was even worse for Helen, the other female peregrine chick. Driscoll said he believes she is dead, because neither he nor other observers saw the chick in the nest box before the birds fledged about 10 days ago.
Helen is named after Helen Hamilton, the first woman to graduate from the UND School of Law.
"We were not seeing four babies in the nest box," Driscoll said. "We saw them eating a carcass that looked like a baby peregrine, so I'm hoping the bands are still in the box."
Driscoll said Helen is the smallest of the four chicks, so something might have gotten her, or she could have been injured in the nest or died from bad food. Being the smallest of the brood, she would be the most likely to succumb to natural hardships, he said.
"Normally, that would be the one that would lose out," Driscoll said.
The other two chicks—males named Lewis and Nelson—haven't been seen since they left the nest. Driscoll, who named the male chicks after Bob Lewis, a birding expert he cites as a mentor, and Nelson Mandela, the South African activist and politician, said it's normal for the chicks to gradually move farther and farther away from their nest.
"They hang out together for awhile and gradually separate," he said. "They're learning how to hunt all on their own, and then they—up and on their own—decide to migrate without their parents. That just amazes me that somehow these birds, without their parents, decide it's time to head south."
Driscoll said the parents, female Terminator and male Marv, will hang around the water tower until about Oct. 1 before migrating. They don't leave at the same time or travel together.
"They find each other at the nest box in the spring" if both survive the migration, he said. "They're hardwired to come back to the UND water tower."
Similar incidents
This isn't the first time a Grand Forks peregrine has made the trip to the Raptor Center. In September 2013, two siblings named Stella and George were taken to the facility just a couple of weeks apart because they were unable to fly. Staff never were able to diagnose an ailment, Driscoll said, but both birds recovered. Stella was returned to Grand Forks and released, and George was released somewhere in the Twin Cities, Driscoll said.
"We haven't heard from either one of them since, so that's not necessarily bad news or good new," he said.
Driscoll's trip to Alexandria took an added twist Tuesday when the Raptor Center called him on the road and asked if he could pick up an injured great horned owl near Fergus Falls, Minn. Driscoll was near Fergus Falls at the time, and so he followed directions to a small lake, where he found the owl perched on a rock along the shoreline.
He scooped it up with a net and hauled the owl to Alexandria with Malala, where it joined the peregrine for the ride to the Raptor Center.
"It was small and I'm guessing a male," Driscoll said. "I'm not sure of the problem, but he was real lethargic."
http://www.grandforksherald.com/outdoors/wildlife/3810960-grand-forks-peregrine-chick-taken-raptor-center
Alison:
This update, dated August 6, is the first news I have seen for some time about the Grand Forks peregrines.
Mystery: Grand Forks peregrine found unable to fly has no obvious ailments
By Brad Dokken
Malala, the Grand Forks peregrine falcon chick that was taken on Tuesday to the Raptor Center in St. Paul after being found unable to fly, doesn't appear to have anything seriously wrong with her.
Tim Driscoll, the Grand Forks raptor expert who on Tuesday drove Malala to Alexandria, Minn., to meet a volunteer who took the bird to the Raptor Center, said he received word Thursday that Raptor Center staff couldn't find anything wrong with the bird.
"They did not diagnose anything wrong, not even a bruised wing, which is better than I thought," Driscoll said. "She is not eating a whole lot, but that is not unusual. That usually takes a day or so. I think it's about as good as we could have hoped."
This isn't the first time a Grand Forks-hatched peregrine has turned up unable to fly. In September 2013, two chicks were taken to the Raptor Center a couple of weeks apart after displaying similar problems with flying. Both recovered and were released, and no ailments were diagnosed for either bird.
Driscoll named the peregrine after Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who won a Nobel Peace Prize after surviving an assassination attempt aboard a school bus for defying the Taliban's ban on girls attending school.
Malala is one of four peregrine chicks that were hatched this spring atop the UND water tower. The other female chick, Helen, is believed to be dead, and the two male chicks, Bob and Nelson, haven't been seen since leaving the nest a couple of weeks ago, Driscoll said.
Driscoll, who banded and named the chicks in June, named Helen after Helen Hamilton, the first woman to graduate from the UND School of Law. Bob is named after Bob Lewis, a birding expert Driscoll cites as a mentor, and Nelson is named after Nelson Mandela, the late South African politician and activist.
http://www.grandforksherald.com/outdoors/3812841-mystery-grand-forks-peregrine-found-unable-fly-has-no-obvious-ailments
I hope Malala will be okay. I have not seen any updates on Helen, and did not know that she was believed to be dead. I wonder why they think that is the case. It is also not good news that Bob and Nelson have not been seen for a couple of weeks. I hope they are out there somewhere. :(
Alison:
A very short video of yesterday's banding:
https://www.facebook.com/GrandForksHerald/posts/10153355719710169
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