The peregrines started the day under fair skies, winds from the SW at 8MPH, and temp at 59F. The forecast for today calls for increasing clouds and scattered showers, mainly after 2pm. The temps high near 77. Southwest wind around 10 mph, with gusts as high as 23 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%.

By day 31, the chicks often become actively interested in losing their down, preening themselves and sometimes ending up with feathers stuck to their beak as a result.  From the back they are looking increasingly dark, with the wing feathers approaching full length. In this photo, the chick in the back left corner is wing flapping, the others have been preening.  The darker feathers are coming in all over, and the down is decreasing rapidly!

Around this time, a nestling can rip up a prey item quite well, and at 39 days it soon demolishes even intact prey items. At this stage, pray is usually left intact for the young to deal with, though the parent may still break food up into smaller pieces.  There is, however, a considerable overlap between parental and self-feeding, and adults will present young with pieces of torn-up prey until they fledge, especially if nestlings solicit.

Literature cited:

Ratcliffe, D. 1993. The Peregrine Falcon. 2nd ed. Carlton, England: T. and A. D. Poyser.

The Canadian Peregrine Foundation, Peregrine Falcon Development – Age Guide; http://www.peregrine-foundation.ca/info/ageguide.html

The peregrines started the day off under fair skies, winds SW at 6MPH, and temp at 56F. The day ahead calls for sunny skies, with a high near 82. Southwest wind 8 to 15 mph.

It’s often around day 30 that the chicks seem to turn into “real” peregrines almost overnight, very rapidly losing much of the down on their breast, thus revealing the heavily streaked breast feathers they will be carrying for the next year. In this photo, one of the chicks is flapping and the darker feather colors, on the wings, back, and tail are very visible!

Feather ruffling with body and head shaking is now marked and increasing time is spent in exercise, notably walking on the feet and wing-flapping.  The young are now better able to eject their droppings out of the nest box. They present their backs to the edge of the nest box, but are careful not to fall out, and have a fairly well developed sense of the gravitational hazard…..but sometimes, it is…….look out below!

Literature cited:

Ratcliffe, D. 1993. The Peregrine Falcon. 2nd ed. Carlton, England: T. and A. D. Poyser.

The Canadian Peregrine Foundation, Peregrine Falcon Development – Age Guide; http://www.peregrine-foundation.ca/info/ageguide.html

Sunrise this morning was at 5:07 AM.  The peregrines started the day off with clear skies, wind from NE at 6MPH, and temp at 54F.  The day ahead calls for mostly sunny skies with a few clouds during the day, but slightly cooler compared to the weekend. Wind will be variable and on the light side. Highs near 70.

By day 29, the chicks often have their faces largely free of down, giving them a white-capped appearance.  On their backs, the remaining down often appears to be clumped together in certain areas, with extensive areas instead revealing the dark juvenile feathers, as you see in this photos. The wing and tail feathers are developing strongly and body feathers begin to appear in lines and patches along the back and breast.  Preening becomes a major activity. Note the new leg bands on the female!!

Literature cited:

Ratcliffe, D. 1993. The Peregrine Falcon. 2nd ed. Carlton, England: T. and A. D. Poyser.

The Canadian Peregrine Foundation, Peregrine Falcon Development – Age Guide; http://www.peregrine-foundation.ca/info/ageguide.html

After sunrise at 5:07 AM, the peregrines started off the day under clear skies, calm wind conditions, and temp at 60F. The day ahead calls for sunny skies, with a high near 81. West wind 5 to 8 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph.

Just after 8:30 AM this morning, the peregrine chicks were laying around and snoozing in a loose huddle.  It is always notable to watch them become alert and ready for a nest feeding.  They rise up, look around, and prepare themselves for the incoming female.  When she arrived back at the nest box, one of the chicks grabbed the prey and scooted off to a corner…a clear sign they are growing and asserting some independence!

Yesterday was yet another falcon leg banding day in Eastern Massachusetts.  Each year, peregrine falcons are fitted with metal leg bands to provide researchers with valuable data on peregrine survival rates, dispersal distances, and population growth rates. The species remains on the endangered species list at the state level, but with about 40 mating pairs of adults statewide, there are more peregrine falcons in Massachusetts than ever before.

We had a nice update on the annual falcon leg banding in Lawrence yesterday from Tom French, who serves as the assistant director of Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife’s (MDFW) Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program.  Tom, and a number of volunteers, banded 3 male chicks in Lawrence.

When the very aggressive young adult female attacked Tom in the nest box, he bravely caught and banded her, too!  In the process of capturing the adult, they broke the unhatched egg and found a two-thirds developed embryo.  As always, they gathered all of the feather debris for further study.

The standard leg band for Peregrines is a silver metal band issued by the federal Bird Banding Lab. The band is inscribed with a unique 9 digit code that allows birds to be identified during future resights or captures. The photo on the left provides a look at the silver federal band on the right leg. A second bi-color band is fitted on the falcon’s opposite leg and includes a field-readable alpha-numeric code. In recent years, falcons in the Eastern US are banded with BLACK over GREEN (2000 – present). There are also several orientations and alphanumeric character arrangements on the bands. When reading a band, an observer should note the top character and its orientation (vertical or horizontal), the top background color, then note the bottom character code, orientation, and color.

Reference cited:

The Center for Conservation Biology, Report Falcon Sightings, http://www.ccbbirds.org/what-we-do/research/species-of-concern/peregrine-falcon/report-sightings/