Two peregrine falcons

I just happened to be gazing out one of my living room windows that overlooks Lake Michigan right around noon today when I saw two peregrine falcons fly by. It's been a long time since I saw one, much less two together, in this neighborhood (though they are still very much here, just not nesting successfully any more). It is sheer joy to see them, it's even possible that they already pairing up. Mating season in Chicago is usually around February, let's hope they try again this year. The University of Chicago some years ago mounted nest boxes on two campus buildings the birds seemed to favor, but they've not yet quite got the idea of how to use the boxes. Last year one of the campus peregrine-spotters saw one standing on a nest box. Maybe it was checking out its suitability for raising a brood. Stay tuned for updates as courting/nesting season approaches.

From my new office I will have a new view of one of their flight paths to the corner of campus where they hang out these days. The photo above was from one of their alternative sites (in 2005), which apparently the birds found ideal for laying eggs. Until, that is, the first hard rain of late spring. Beauty? Brawn? Yes. Brains? Maybe not so much.

Birds and the City

For the first time in many months I spotted a peregrine falcon on the campus of the University of Chicago yesterday. For five or six years a pair successfully fledged chicks on the ledge of steeple that backed against the base of the spire on the First Unitarian Church of Chicago at 57^th Street and Woodlawn. The pair, known as Magnolia and Orion, was one of several captive-bred by Chicago Peregrine Release and Restoration (now under the rubric of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.) That location was fortuitous because it was possible, if not exactly easy, to belay out the steeple window to nab the chicks to winch inside long enough to draw a sample of DNA and to sex (easy with peregrines) and band them. When the church dismantled its unsalvageable steeple several seasons ago, the birds experimented with other locations on the University of Chicago campus, favoring especially the rain gutters on Kelly-Green and Cobb Halls. Peregrines are known for their beauty and brawn, but not for their brains. Each time the hen produced a promising clutch of beautiful rusty-brown eggs, the eggs would die in the next gully-washer. Last year it was discovered (based on the bands on the bird's legs) that Magnolia’s mate was not Orion, but one of their sons Eddie; their attempts at reproducing nonetheless continued to fail.

With no chicks to tie them to the campus, both adults eventually abandoned their regular roosts and since the middle of last summer it has been an increasingly rare treat to spot one. Yesterday I was sitting with a colleague, Hoyt Bleakley, whose office faces west. All of a sudden I saw that familiar fast and strong wing beat speeding directly at the window. Hoyt starts yelling “Pull up! Pull up!!” and of course the bird, a mature peregrine, did so just as we got a really good look at it – something like the last view of anything that some pigeons get. It’s likely it perched at the top of the Graduate School of Business’ Hyde Park Center’s glass tower, as I have occasionally seen one, and/or its sign, there. A few moments later the scene repeated itself except the view of the falcon was from the rear. It swiftly made its way straight west, then veered out of sight behind the outsized steeple of Rockefeller Chapel. Later that afternoon I spotted it on its familiar roost very high on the steeple.

Of course unless there is a mate, there won’t be chicks this year either. But the University of Chicago has made most generous efforts to support these rare birds by constructing first class next boxes mounted on the top of both Pick Hall and the Administration Building. The small clique of peregrine-watchers on campus is eternally optimistic that a pair will soon notice and make use of the commodious digs and start making new falcons again.

Peregrinations

For the first winter season in more than I can count, we do not have one or more peregrine falcons "hanging around" the University of Chicago campus. I think about them a lot, but the December 19 memorial for Malachi Ritscher (beautifully organized by our mutual employer, the University of Chicago) has brought them more acutely to mind of late. Malachi had been involved with the Chicago Peregrine Release and Restoration project for more than 10 years, a little longer than I myself have. I think my friend Mary Hennen, director of the project, won't mind if I reprint her comments here:

"I regret that I will be unable to attend [the memorial] as I would have been happy to remark on Malachi's passion for the peregrines. I knew Malachi back in 1994 when he lived on the north side near the Broadway [falcon nest] site. He dedicated an extraordinary amount of time to observing and documenting that pair of falcons throughout their nesting season. Malachi's enthusiasm for the peregrines showed in his beautiful photographs of the birds which he generously shared. It was very nice to see him again at the University in 2005 as it had been a number of years and I'm very sorry for everyone's loss of a good friend."

Malachi's self-inflicted death was meant to draw attention to the evils of the war in Iraq, but was ignored by mainstream news media locally and nationally, which makes it all the sadder that this advocate for the restoration of the species and for other culturally, humanistically, and humanely important causes, is gone.