West Winnipeg - 2015 / Ty & Beatrix

[The Peregrine Chick]

This is not the bird I took pictures of yesterday. This bird has a whiter breast with less speckles and the white on the cheek has an indent like the top of a heart shape.

That's exactly what Dennis and I have been saying all day.  Hopefully between all our photos and what video I have we may be able to narrow down who's who and when they were here/there.

[dupre501]

Went out early this evening and spotted one bird standing in the nestbox. Could just make out the head above the edge of the building. Stayed for a few minutes then decided to see if we could find any other birds.

Found another on the Bleachers a little lower than where Beau and Jules used to like to sit and watch the world go round. Just as we found this bird--it was off. The bird from the nestbox was chasing this one around. Didn't hear any calling sounds or yelling sounds from the two as they flew around the Bleachers. Around and around they went, then they disappeared. Oh, one of the birds landed on the top of the Bleachers. This is not the bird I took pictures of yesterday. This bird has a whiter breast with less speckles and the white on the cheek has an indent like the top of a heart shape. Looking around we found the second had headed to the Tower. As we headed home, we spotted the one that had been on the Bleachers was now on the Diner.
 

[The Peregrine Chick]

The mystery is deepening at West Winnipeg - black banded birds for sure.  The band on what we believe is the male is what is interesting, we have a couple of possibilities both from Manitoba - problem is that we aren't sure of the one of the digits and we have to be sure about that digit. 

Now, having said that, we have other photos/images of a "male" that looks a bit different, so 1 male or 2?  Or 2 males then, 1 male now?

Oh, we do love a mystery 

[The Peregrine Chick]

We may have a change in resident males here ... I've been watching the two birds - male and female - she's in the box and it looks like a black band on her still but the male looks like Beau but not like Beau and his band looks a bit too dark to be red ... but we are still working on it and we'll know soon.

[The Peregrine Chick]

Well done with the photos Dupre - not sure about the band number though - Beatrix's band is very scraped up so difficult to read so the line between the digits is consistent but the rest is just not clear enough.  Not your fault, we had to work very hard with this bird last year and Wowzer wasn't getting the band number for a long time.  It's a combination of light, distance and a faded/worn band.  Thank you for trying and coming awfully close though!  Beatrix isn't out of the running though - the line between the digits is consistent with her band number and the coloured band is on the same leg.

[GCG]

  dupre your photos are nothing less than spectacular. Love your narration as well. Thanks for sharing.

[Kinderchick]

LOVE your pics of the PF & the moon in the background, dupre!

[RCF]

Great pics dupre!! 

[Cooper]

Thanks for those Dupre.  Great pics. Nice that she deigned to pose for you too.  

[dupre501]

Let's see if we can do a close-up

[dupre501]

I missed seeing them this weekend. So after reading TPC's descriptions of the goings on, I raced out to see what I could find after work. Took my new lens, wanting to play with it.

Found one peregrine on the Diner. Discovered if I moved around a little I could get both the peregrine and moon in my shot. So I was out there merrily clicking away, trying to get artistic, when the peregrine decided to do a little shifting. 1) Here, look at my right leg it has a silver band on it. 2) & 3) Shift and stretch left leg down, oh look, see my nice black leg band. I'll show you the rivet attachment and maybe a "4". 4) I moved a little closer, but by now she has settled back into position and just looks at me over her shoulder. Still learning how much moving around a little changes the light in the pictures.

[The Peregrine Chick]

Bird, not quite sure who was on the corner of the roof at the nestbox from 0642h to 1152h this morning.  We are going to have to clean off the cover on the camera, just enough build-up to make it tough to tell if there are speckles on a bird's breast !!  By size, I think it was the female, not a big female but looked too bulky to be a male, particularly if the male is Beau who is larger than our Manitoba males usually are.

[The Peregrine Chick]

Here's hoping the female PF is Beatrix. 

The WW female has speckles on her breast like Princess but the speckles on the sides of her breast (think shoulder area on a person) are noticeable - haven't noticed shoulder speckles on Princess particularly but the WW female's ones seem more pronounced.  I was looking at photos and it seems that Beatrix's were like that - but it could be common among Princess' female offspring - Hurricane is the only one we see regularly and she's Princess/Trey, not Princess/Ivy.  We'll just have to see but this female seems pretty comfortable here and with the male here so there is at least a decent chance.  They have only been home for a couple of days, we'll see what the next week of observations brings!

[Kinderchick]

Here's hoping the female PF is Beatrix. 

[The Peregrine Chick]

The West Winnipeg pair (identities not confirmed yet) are back again today and making themselves very comfortable at the nestsite.  Still haven't gotten a look at their bands but I'm checking the cams and Dennis is wandering around with Wowzer.  This way we can keep an eye on all the nestsites and help to determine if we are looking at the same birds or different ones.  In any case, the light is better (partly sunny here) and though the wind is up still, we are having a bit better luck getting a look at the birds both from the ground and via the web.

More news as we have it!