Another year begins!
Spring 2008 - The adult Peregrines spent the winter of 2007-2008 roosting at various locations around the Hamilton downtown core. They are aggresively defending their nest site on the Sheraton Hamilton hotel. In the next few days we will be seeking to confirm that the two falcons in our skies are still Madame X and Surge.
Our live webcam will be operational by March 10th.
In 2007 Madame X and Surge hatched four chicks. They were stricken by a bacterial infection a few weeks after hatching, and sadly, two chicks did not survive to fledge. When the surviving two chicks were banded in June, one was found to need a bit of medical assistance (and was removed from the nest for a few weeks), while the other was found to be strong enough to fight off the infection on its own. The surviving pair, named 'Jump Up' and 'Blue Foot', gained strength, and went on to become agile masters of the air.
Madame X was hatched on a bridge on Pennsylvania Route 309, the Cross-Valley Expressway in Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Banded as a hatchling on 7, June 1999 she was known to the falcon watchers in Northeast PA as 'Runaround Sue', a name suggested after she was found running along the expressway guide wall one morning. We are keeping the folks in Pennsylvania posted on Madame X's progress.
Many birds exhibit a trait called 'site fidelity'. If at least one of a pair that used a nest site in the previous year return, and if there have been no significant physical changes to disturb either the nest itself or the birds generally, they will use the same nest site over and over again, year after year. Peregrine Falcons are known for site fidelity. This will be Madame X's seventh year in Hamilton and Surge's second, and the thirteenth year the same nest site on the Sheraton Hamilton Hotel has been used.
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