2020 NESTING SEASON
Some great news posted to CPF Facebook this evening. This young lady is the daughter of the late Cass, whose parents were Nick and Hathor. Hathor was the daughter of the legendary Dorothy at the Cathedral of Learning in Pittsburgh and Nick was the son of Miriam - a Canadian peregrine hacked by CPF in 2003 as part of the satellite tracking program.
2013 HATCH CANADIAN PEREGRINE SIGHTED IN NEW JERSEY!! IT'S ASHLEY FROM MEC!!!! I can't believe I'm even typing that but the truth is inescapable. This was a bird that gave me the grey hairs I currently sport. Her story is a long and crazy one but here we go.
At the Mississauga Executive Centre site in 2013 Sante (the resident male) and Cass (the new resident female) had successfully hatched two young females, Ashley and Catherine, and all seemed on track for a great spring for this family. Little did we know that we were in for a wild ride. Ashley was the first to "fledge". I say that very tongue in cheek as she slipped off rather than flew and after fluttering to the ground, I rescued her for the first time. 1. Remember that number. After her release to the roof of MEC One I lost sight of her for a day and after tromping around looking for her for hours, I sat down to watch the parents. Let them tell me where she is! They did. Circling high above MEC One they reminded me that there is a pit on that roof. A 20 foot deep cooling tower pit that no bird could get out of. I headed up to check it and when I peeked over the edge two little eyes were staring back at me looking rather dejected. So I rescued her again. 2. By this time her sister had taken her first flight during which she tragically and fatally collided with another tower. Ashley was now the only young left. Her next flight took a while but when she did it wasn't too bad. Except that she was too low, ran out of steam and ended up being the centerpiece in a flowerpot full of petunias at MEC Four. So I rescued her again. 3. Back up she went to the roof of the nest building to give it another go. With no sibling to compete with and her confidence a bit underwhelming, she sat and sat and sat. Until one day she disappeared. I beat the bushes, scoured the streets and turned over every rock. Exhausted I went back up to the roof and on a whim, stopped in the mechanical area at the man door to Ash's pit. When I opened it...she was mucking about in a puddle underneath the equipment and she was quite wet. So...again. 4!!!!!!! This time I released her on the roof of MEC Three and have been releasing young ones there ever since. She just couldn't seem to get it together this one!! She had all the right stuff but her choices were ridiculous. Under the circumstances we extended the Fledge Watch long beyond the norm to ensure that Ashley was well on her way. 22 DAYS LATER WE SCALED THE WATCH BACK. 22 days, 4 rescues and one silly little bird.
On the heels of all of this, we received a phone call of a deceased peregrine found across the street at the CIBC building on July 22nd. It was Cass, the resident female. That left Sante to continue to raise Ashley on his own. Ashley is the one and only offspring that Cass is ever known to have produced.
That brings us to now. 7 years later I never expected to hear of her thriving let alone see amazing pictures of her loving life at Merrill Creek Reservoir in New Jersey. I cannot thank enough the amazing photographer Derrick Tornicelli for sharing his sighting as well as his photos with us here at CPF. I also want to thank Kathy Clark, CWB Endangered & Nongame Species Program with the New Jersey DEP Division of Fish & Wildlife for seeking out her identity and allowing us to share this most excellent news. It proves without a shadow of a doubt that what we do is worth all the sweat, all the exhaustion and all the effort that volunteers put in to watching over young peregrines in urban environments. She is alive today because we cared and put her welfare at the top of the to do list for that day. I personally would like to thank Margaret, Katherine, Shannon, Winston, Bruce and Mark as well as all the amazing people at the MEC complex and the fantastic building management, staff and security. It took a village.
