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Copyright © 2010 Red Deer River Naturalists

 

RDRN's Peregrine Falcon Webcam

 Frequently Asked Questions and Videos Available Here.

Viewer Photos Available Here.
 

Web cam courtesy of:

    

Nest box courtesy of
Alberta Fish and Wildlife

Installation labour courtesy of:


©2010 Judy Boyd

Peregrine falcon

2010 Chronology:
March 30: TELUS crew raised the box to the top of the tower, 312 feet (95 m) up.
March 30 - April 10: Testing, writing code, and waiting for the peregrines to enter the nest box.
April 21: Peregrines begin to regularly enter the box.
April 24: On-line live view begins.
May 1: 8:00 p.m. First egg.
May 3: 11:30 p.m. Second egg.
May 6: About 5:00 a.m. Third egg.
May 8: 6:00 a.m. Fourth egg.
May 9: It appears incubation has started. Hatching should start about June 9.
May 10: About 2:00 p.m. Fifth egg.
May 30: About 3:30 p.m., two eggs go missing.
June 12: 7:54 a.m. First chick hatched.
June 12: 11:02 a.m. Second chick hatched.
June 13: 12:30 p.m. Third chick has hatched.
June 17: Chicks name in Red Deer Advocate contest: Scout - the first to hatch; Telli - second to hatch and in honour of Telus; and Nadira - last to hatch, and Arabic name meaning rare and precious.
July 20: Fledge started.
From the tower:


April 30, 2010


May 1, 2010


May 5, 2010


May 6, 2010


May 10, 2010


June 12, 2010


June 12, 2010


June 14, 2010


July 11, 2010


TELUS Tower, Red Deer
(Platform is 302 feet (92 m)
above ground level.


Instrument package


Final adjustment of the
camera in the nest box.


Nest box hoisted to the top.

 

Peregrine falcons regularly return to their favourite nesting sites. The TELUS tower in Red Deer has been used for years. Normally, peregrines nest on steep cliffs, sometimes returning to the same nest for years. Recently they have adopted tall buildings as nesting sites. Some good building nest sites in Canada include: Edmonton, Red Deer, Calgary, Saskatoon, Regina, Brandon, Winnipeg, London, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, and Saint John.

They are about crow-sized; the females being larger than the males.

Visually, look for the black "teardrop" (malar) and the dark bluish-grey crown, back, and upper wing surface. The throat is white, the underparts are white to buff, and there are blackish-brown bars on the sides, thighs, abdomen, underwings, and the lower breast area.

Peregrines in flight are distinguished from hawks by their more streamlined appearance. They have relatively small heads and long pointed wings, an adaptation that allows them to fly rapidly. They have powerful talons and a hooked beak. The beak is equipped with a notch or "tooth" that aids in severing the spinal cord of the birds they prey on. Peregrines have extremely acute eyesight making them effective hunters at dawn and dusk.

Some captive peregrines have been known to live up to 20 years, but life spans in the wild are much shorter.

During migration, they have been known to fly up to 500 kilometres in a day. A female Peregrine that nested in Edmonton flew to Mazatlan, Mexico, in less than eight days and returned in six days. Peregrines banded in the Northwest Territories have been recovered in Argentina; most arctic nesters apparently “leapfrog” more southern North American falcons to winter farther south in South America. In fact, the Peregrine Falcon was named for the lengthy migrations of some populations: “peregrine,” from the Latin adjective peregrinus, means “coming from foreign parts” or “wanderer.”

Peregrines’ prey species vary greatly from region to region and even from one nesting site to the next. For example, in parts of the Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, Peregrines feed almost entirely on the Ancient Murrelet, a small seabird plentiful there. On the east coast of Labrador, Peregrines eat Black Guillemots, another common seabird, and small mammals such as mice and voles. At Rankin Inlet, on the west shore of Hudson Bay, Peregrines eat mostly lemmings and shorebirds. In southern Canada, they eat a variety of birds that live in wetlands, including Franklin’s Gulls, Black Terns, Lesser Yellowlegs, Eared Grebes, Northern Flickers, Green-winged Teals, and Soras. In cities, Peregrines eat some pigeons, but these rarely account for more than 20 percent of their diet.

Renowned as the "fastest bird in the world", they can dive at speeds over 300 km/hour when attacking prey. A stooping (diving) Peregrine is a hurtling wedge of streamlined feathers. Its feet lie back against its tail and its wings are half closed. Its usual method of disabling or killing medium-sized and large prey is to deliver a fierce blow with a half-closed foot during a dive. If the quarry is too heavy to carry, the Peregrine allows it to fall to the ground, then lands to kill and feed on it. It snatches small prey such as swallows or sandpipers in mid-flight with its talons or strikes the prey down and then retrieves it. The Peregrine’s flights at intended prey are often unsuccessful. The ability of the individual bird, the agility of the prey, and the availability of escape cover affect the success of each stoop. As is usual in predator–prey relationships, the Peregrine singles out aberrant or weaker individuals as prey.

With few enemies and a long lifespan, Peregrines, like other predators, are at the top of a food chain. Peregrines were exposed to much higher levels of pesticide residues than the levels found in air or water because they because they eat birds that may have eaten grain or insects treated with pesticides, the Peregrines were exposed to much higher levels of pesticide residues than were found in the air or water. Pesticide residue levels in their bodies would have been many times higher than the levels in their prey species. At high levels, these chemicals caused reproductive failure by interfering with breeding behaviour, eggshell formation, and hatching success. Thus Peregrine populations gradually dwindled because of the lack of breeding success.

In 1969 in Canada and in 1972 in the United States, restrictions were placed on the use of DDT, a persistent pesticide that contributed to the Peregrine’s decline. Nevertheless, Canadian Peregrines and their prey species probably continued acquiring contaminants on their wintering grounds in Central and South America.

Peregrine Falcons, like virtually all birds of prey, now receive legal protection in most parts of North America. In other parts of the world, however, protection is much less complete, and populations are endangered by adults being shot and young being taken from nests.

Other peregrine web sites:

The Canadian Peregrine Foundation

CBC Winnipeg Peregrine Web Cam

Hinterland Who's Who

Other peregrine falcon web cams:

Manitoba Falcon Cam Forum

University of Alberta Peregrine Web Cam

University of Calgary Peregrine Falcon Page

Count start: 12:00 a.m. May 1, 2010