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Alison:
Department of Natural Resources is reporting number of nesting peregrines has grown
WQAD TV / 13 May 2010

AMES, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is reporting the number of nesting pairs of peregrine falcons has grown to 16.

According to DNR officials, that is the most nesting pairs counted since the department launched its falcon restoration program in 1989.

According to wildlife diversity technician Pat Schlarbaum, there were 13 nesting pairs of peregrines in Iowa last year. The new nesting sites this year are near Lansing and in Clinton and Muscatine.

There were just two nesting pairs of falcons in Iowa a little over 10 years ago. At the time the restoration began, officials said the goal was to establish five nesting pairs in the state.

http://www.wqad.com/news/sns-ap-ia--iowa-peregrinefalcons,0,4815476.story

Alison:
Man in court on rare egg theft charges

Counter-terrorism officers recently arrested a man who has been accused of scaling a mountain and stealing rare bird’s eggs – in the first case of its kind for 20 years.  The suspect had been stopped by police at Birmingham International Airport, as he was about to board a plane to Dubai earlier this month.  He has been charged with stealing 14 peregrine falcon eggs, from a nest in Rhondda, South Wales. It’s alleged that he’d strapped the eggs to his body, in order to keep them warm. He was arrested at the airport on Bank Holiday Monday.

Last Wednesday (May 5), Jeffrey Lendrum, 48, appeared before Solihull Magistrates.  He faces four charges involving the taking of eggs, and hiding them to evade export restrictions.  He was remanded in custody, and is due to appear at Warwick Crown Court later this month.Twelve of the 14 eggs are thought to have survived, and have been placed in the care of a local wildlife charity.  Before the experts arrived, officers had kept the batch warm by putting them on top of office computers, and turning them regularly.

If they hatch, it’s hoped that the birds-of-prey will eventually be released into the wild. Peregrine falcons (pictured) are a protected species – they were previously culled during World War 2, because they preyed on carrier pigeons.  But following a change in the law, the population has recovered, and bred locally. In previous years, the falcons have nested at Fort Dunlop, Erdington, and the Chamberlain Tower at Birmingham University.

It’s thought that this is the first time someone has been charged with attempting to smuggle bird-of-prey eggs out of the UK, since 1990.

Alison:
Breeding success

Open-mouthed and featherless, three falcon chicks crane their necks toward their mother as she tears chunks of meat from a fresh quail and gingerly feeds her wide-eyed young.  Safe beneath their mother's vigilant lookout, the shrill crying of the hungry brood in the nest is a scene that has played itself out in remote rocky reaches of the globe from time immemorial.

But in this instance, the gravel substrate beneath the chicks is part of a triangular man-made nest positioned in a breeding chamber deep inside the UAE's only commercial falcon breeding facility — the Nad Al Sheba Avian Reproduction Research Centre.
The fabled goose that laid the golden egg, it would appear, has changed its feathers.

Today, it is the rare and magnificent falcon raised in captivity that is laying four to 15 golden eggs a year, that ultimately, as adults, fetch more than $30,000 (Dh110,100) apiece when sold as full-grown hunting birds. Breeding, raising and selling falcons is big business for the centre, producing more than 200 fully grown specimens a year for sale in an international industry worth untold billions annually.

Opened in the spring of 2001 by owner Mohammad Suhail Bin Tarraf, 36 falcons were raised in the centre in its first year.  By the end of this year's spring-breeding season, there could be more than 250 fully grown falcons in the most productive year ever, said David Le Mesurier (pictured below), avian centre manager.

"I don't count my chickens before they're hatched but I have a lot of eggs at the end of the month," Le Mesurier told Gulf News during a tour inside the facility.  A UK expatriate who has raised falcons since the age of 12, Le Mesurier helped custom design the avian centre to create a comfortable environment for the hundreds of breeding falcons he maintains, as well as the hunting-bird offspring that are sold each year to enthusiasts both domestically and abroad.

In five large breeding buildings, 112 specially designed breeding chambers include, for example, one-way observation windows that face away from nests at a 45-degree angle to avoid birds seeing their reflections.  Chamber entry doors open into the room rather than against the wall, he said, to prevent birds from flying out into the long hallways where clipboards hang at each chamber doorway, with charts carefully logging all aspects of the young birds' formative years, before release and sale.

Attention to detail is the backbone of Le Mesurier's business acumen when it comes to caring for each and every falcon, he said.

"It makes good business sense," he said. When people shell out large amounts of money, they want only the best money can buy.

"As far as I'm aware, we're the only commercial breeding project in the UAE. We produce very high quality birds. They will always sell," he said, adding that it's all about "selling high quality product at a good price".

On the business front, Le Mesurier said the yearly market strategy is to stay ahead of competitors by offering its birds for sale at the beginning of the autumnal falconry hunting season, at a time when foreign falcon representatives enter the UAE to offer their birds as well.  The falcon reproduction centre sells about 80 per cent of its birds to Emirati Shaikhs in the UAE, he said. "Within three or four days, all of our birds are sold."

For the rest of the article:

http://gulfnews.com/business/features/breeding-success-1.624947

Alison:
Lovebirds home to nest at Sebel Cairns

A SWEET romance has blossomed above as two peregrine falcons come home to roost on the Sebel Cairns Hotel sign.

The Weekend Post photographer Marc McCormack has been following the life of a peregrine falcon at the Abbott St hotel for months and has recently noted the bird’s single life is over.  Ornithologist and Birds Australia representative for Mossman and the Daintree, Del Richards, said the peregrines, the fastest birds in the world, capable of reaching speeds of up to 260km/h, have come back to nest.

"These birds might live for 30 years and mate for life," Mr Richards said. "They start their courtship and mate this time of year, have their chicks in August, and move to the mountains around October to take their young from the city."

While they live in Cairns, the falcons feed on pigeons and lorikeets. Mr Richards believes the same pair has a long history in Cairns and has previously nested on a balcony of an Esplanade hotel for many years.

http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2010/05/08/108815_local-news.html

I remember seeing photos of this pair in the past.

Alison:
Llanito, Gibraltar

The Llanito Peregrines

In a quiet corner of Windmill Hill flats, the first of two yearly clutches of captive-bred Peregrine falcons is growing up fast.  Reared in captivity and trained by experienced falconers at the Raptor Unit of the Gibraltar Ornithological and Natural History Society, the three birds will eventually be released into the wild.

Some will settle in Gibraltar, while others will move further afield. Thanks in part to this breeding program, this majestic bird now has a firmly-established presence in Gibraltar. There are currently seven pairs living and nesting on the Rock, as well as one lone falcon trying to establish itself. The birds normally nest in the nooks and crannies of the sheer north face of the Rock, where access is tricky and young birds are relatively safe.

Vincent Robba, who heads the Raptor Unit, said he and his team coordinate the first clutch of captive-bred birds to coincide with birds breeding in the wild. It means that once the captive-bred birds are trained and released, they are more likely to find birds of a similar age.

The birds are trained from seven weeks of age using traditional falconry methods aimed at refining their flying and hunting skills. Over time, they gain confidence in the wild until eventually, their hunting skills perfected, they stop returning to the falconer’s lure.

Sometimes during training, the GONHS raptor team has introduced young captive-bred birds into area where they know wild birds of the same age are learning to fly and hunt. They call this “synchronised hacking”.

“Once we saw our young falcons playing for hours in the air with wild birds,” Mr Robba said.

Two Peregrines were successfully released this way last year and were adopted by Peregrine families in the wild.  

Although the Peregrine breeding program has been underway since the mid to late 1990s, it took several years before the first fertile eggs were laid. It was 2004 before the first Peregrine was born in captivity to a disabled female – she had a broken wing - that had been artificially inseminated with semen from a bird in Spain. The chick was reared and trained in captivity and later released into the wild.

But although the GONHS team took encouragement from this success, the program was often frustrating. Sometimes the male falcons were reluctant to mate. On other occasions when they did mate, the eggs produced were infertile. Over the years, the number of successful clutches increased and these days, several falcons are reintroduced into the wild every year. Remarkably, all were born from the same female. In all, she has produced 21 birds, of which 15 have already been released into the wild.

Through its contacts with Spanish ornithologists, GONHS believes some of those birds may have established themselves in the Cádiz region.

http://www.chronicle.gi/headlines_details.php?id=18914

 

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