Well when the visiting peregrine left today I thought she was headed north and I would never see her again. I am astonished. She was back on the edge of the ledge tonight. Probably arrived about 10:30 or 11:00 but left again at 11:20 pm. Maybe she wants to settle in Winnipeg but all of the males are taken, or not to her fancy.
If she is going to stay in Winnipeg maybe we should name her. Hmm maybe something to do with her greyish green feathers on her left chest. BTW-I don't think it was dried blood.
Do peregrines hunt at night too?
We've had birds hang out for a couple of hours, couple of days, couple of months, then take off. Alice stayed for a whole summer then a couple of months the next spring before heading off with Zeus to Brandon. We had seven unbanded peregrines on a building one year who were gone 6 hours later. The tundra birds are moving and should be on their nesting grounds in early June, if you girl hangs out until then, the chance that she will hang out for the rest of the summer is pretty good.
Urban peregrines do apparently if there is enough light to do so safely - remember they fly at high speeds. Some of the birds they like to eat are active after sunset but not over the night so might have been that. Or she could have been checking out where to roost, mostly they like to roost out of the wind so she might have been checking out her choices or she could just have been taking a last constitutional.
As for naming her, without bands hard to know for sure if it is the same bird if she disappears for a few weeks or months. The green on her breast won't stay, it could very well be blood or something else but it will wear off as she preens and/or when she moults as the year goes by. Thing to do is get as many photos as you can without distressing her - head shots so you can see the pattern on her head which will look different depending on how she sits, stands, stretches, etc, but sometimes you can spot a unique feature - like Brooklyn's very white breast and Princess' crown of light coloured feathers on her head. See if you can spot something like this - something that will survive her annual feather moult - and then, if she stays, that's when to consider what her personality is telling you should be her name. T-Rex got his name because of his hyper-protective personality, Hurricane because she hatched in a year with a ton of tornadoes in the province during the nesting season and Ty because he and his siblings were giving me headaches - they hatched on the Radisson nest ledge.
