Other Peregrine Projects > USA Peregrines
MN / Elk River - 2008-22
carly:
Alison: They posted an update on the big fight in Sussex and turns out they were wrong about it's identity. The old tiercel who had been there for 9 or 10 years and was found injured back in February and placed in rehab flew right home on his release and tried to get his site back and failed.
Poor guy, but he has survived and hopefully wont' try to come back for round 2. And I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you were right, this obviously was not the same female from last year - or would she fight her old mate ?
What an odd situation although last year at Port Colbourne the resident female did attack an intruding tiercel but only after he had injured her mate. Can't wait to hear TPC's take on this one.
carly:
Maggie your description of the fight is right on. I did turn the cam off for a minute or two but because I was worried for 30b - I quickly turned it back on and caught the end as well. I would say I only missed a few minutes. I did see some attempted pecking at the start but they were both pretty good dodgers.
I too got the impression that they didn't want to hurt each other, I think TPC hit the nail on the head - it was more of a 'dominance display' and I would like to think it was an escort out.
I think 30b is alive - call it a gut feeling but after reading about Stelco coming back then I am going to believe we haven't seen the last of her. Given she survived being displaced at Sherco, she is probably smart enough to know when to back down.
maggieblue:
--- Quote from: Alison on March 20, 2009, 04:57 ---Did anyone manage to save any pics of the territorial battle a couple of days ago? I missed it, of course, and I'd really like to know which falcons were involved. It sounds as if 30/B has been displaced? I hope not - she has had enough difficulties in her life already, and she can't really go back to Sherco, since there is a pair at that nest now.
--- End quote ---
I have been kicking myself that I haven't learned yet how to capture pictures or video from the cams. (Perhaps someone can give some advice in the technical section). I can give you a bit more information about the confrontation that perhaps Carly can confirm or correct. I happened to have the cam open while I was doing something else and caught some movement out of the corner of my eye. This turned out to be 2 birds in the box moving towards each other and then all you know what broke loose. Initially I thought that this would be a short confrontation but as it went on I decided to post to the forum to alert other people and therfore missed some of what happened. When I got there Carly had already posted and said that she wasn't going to watch. I wanted to know what the outcome would be and when I got back to Elk River the two falcons were locked together facing each other in an upright position. Each had their talons wrapped around the other birds legs so they were having to support themselves on their tail and wings. Carly described this as a screamfest and that is a great description. Take the worst sounds from the Brighton fight and multiply that by two. The banded bird which I think was 30B was backed up against the edge of the nestbox. This screaming went on for at least 15 minutes. At that point the falcon on the right started to lose her "voice" and her body posture started to soften. My thought was they were thinking, how do we get out of this! Suddenly the banded bird did a backwards drop right out of the box. The falcon on the right dived after her. I just had the impression from the face and body language that this was an "I am going to escort this floozy out of here" move. I didn't see either one of them down on their back as in the video and slideshow from Alison. Hope this makes it a little clearer.
Elaine L:
The Brighton Battle was fierce - the worse thing about it was how close the talons get to the eyes. I don't want to see this again.
Alison:
There was also a territorial battle at the Alma, Wisconsin nest earlier this month. I passed on the information to Raptor Resource, who notified Bob Anderson and John. People at the Alma Plant checked the area, and found no dead or injured falcons. Bob looked at the photos I had saved, and commented that he didn't see either of the falcons try to bite each other's neck and that while there have been battles at this site in the past, they haven't found a dead falcon yet.
In case anyone would like to see the pics, here is the slideshow:
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