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MN / Crookston - 2017-22

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The Peregrine Chick:
2022 NESTING SEASON

No updates I'm afraid.  If anyone tracks some down, please do send to me and I can add to this thread even though it is locked.  ~TPC

The Peregrine Chick:
2021 NESTING SEASON

The Peregrine Chick:
https://twitter.com/mbperegrines/status/875141424622313473

The Peregrine Chick:
continued from previous post ...



Driscoll estimated that the peregrine chick banded today was about 19 days old, and determined that he was a male. Peregrines fledge when they are 28-30 days old, and he wanted to avoid the risk of the chick jumping from the nesting box and flying once the 28-day mark loomed. While four eggs had initially been observed in the nest, only the single chick was found today. Today’s banding came at a fortunate time for the chick, who was found to have wire from the nesting platform wrapped around his right leg tightly enough to have caused an injury, which Driscoll treated with Neosporin. “The wire was wrapped around his leg, that’s why it took us a little longer to get him out. Once we got him out of the box, we had to untangle him. You can imagine if you get hooked with wire, then you start turning around, and pulling against it, and dancing around and twisting. The wire was from a wire liner in the bottom of the box," said Loegering. "The whole bottom of the box has a wire mesh on it – we’ll have to take that out for next year, because he, or some other bird stepped on it and pulled it out. The good news is that he still has feeling in the leg and can still move his toes. He’s young.”

Driscoll and others who band peregrines name the chicks, because it’s easier to remember a name than a band number. Loegering had the honor of naming the chick, and he chose the name “Rand” in honor of Rand Aldo Leopold, a conservationist, forester, philosopher, educator, writer, and outdoor enthusiast, who is considered by many to be the father of wildlife ecology and the United States' wilderness system.  Loegering explained his choice of the name, saying "This is pretty unique for Crookston - this is a Crookston first.  The peregrine falcon baby is a wonderful example of cooperation and conservation.  I really looked toward people who were big names in the field of conservation and wildlife management.  This baby's name is 'Rand,' because that's the first name of the Father of Wildlife Management, Aldo Leopold.  His full name is Rand Aldo Leopold.  He's the first of hopefully many, many years."   

On average, falcons live about seven or eight years. The female peregrine is about 1/3 larger than the male so she can protect the eggs and young, and so that together they can catch a wider range of prey. The smaller male is better at catching small birds and the larger female is better at catching larger birds, so this helps in feeding hungry young. Adult peregrine falcons are light gray on the back and mostly white on the breast, and first year falcons are brown and white. After a year, they start getting adult plumage.


Source: http://www.kroxam.com/NewsPage.htm

The Peregrine Chick:
Rand, the Peregrine Falcon Banded Today
Crookston KROX - 12 June 2017



Licensed bander and raptor expert Tim Driscoll of Grand Forks was in town this morning to band a peregrine falcon chick at the Mid Valley Grain Elevator in Crookston. This is the first year peregrines have been documented nesting in Crookston. He was assisted by Dr. John Loegering and Dr. Dan Svedarsky from the Natural Resources Department at the University of Minnesota Crookston (UMC). The peregrine nest, located on the east side of the Mid Valley Grain elevator, was constructed last year by Scott Erdmann of SunOpta. Erdmann constructed a nesting ledge on the closest thing Crookston has to a sheer cliff – the elevator side. “Peregrine falcons nest on cliffs. Where you would naturally find them would be where you have a vertical face on a cliff ledge. We don’t have any of those in the Red River Valley – even the steep river banks have soil that sloughs, so you don’t have that nice ledge situation that you might have in a mountainous area," said Loegering. "For that reason, this area did not have many peregrines. If you want to make a cliff ledge, a grain elevator is a fantastic place to make a cliff ledge. The box you see sticking out extends back into the elevator; it’s probably 30 inches wide by 30 inches deep, and it’s got 4-6 inches of gravel in the bottom of it, so it’s very much like a natural cliff nest. You make what they need, and they’ll find it.”

Peregrine falcons live in moderate to warm climates, and tend to migrate south in the winter to avoid the intense cold and because most of the prey birds they eat migrate south during the winter.  “They’re long distance travelers. They usually like a cliff nest – that’s what we’re mimicking here," said Loegering. "They will nest in the arctic, and then migrate all the way down to South America, so they cover a lot of area looking for the right place to live. If you make it, they’ll come.”

When asked what the falcons are feeding on, Loegering explained, "Falcons are aerial predators. They’ll eat almost exclusively bird prey – in this case, pigeons. I think the intent in putting the nesting box up there was to manage the pigeons, and they’ll certainly snack on them. It’s actually quite a sight to see them hunt. They’ll fly high and dive at the pigeon, and they’ll take it right in mid-air. I have colleagues who’ve seen them take ducks for instance; you just see a poof of feathers as the falcon attacks that bird, breaks its spine, grabs a hold and takes off with it.”

Loegering said the falcons feed their chicks directly with the prey they catch. “It depends on the size of the bird, but sometimes they’ll pluck them at a different spot, then bring the food up to the nest box,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if right now if you’d see a bunch of baby starlings carcasses; they are just now leaving the nest and they’re ‘young and dumb’, so to speak, so they’re pretty easy prey.”

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