Frodocam: an early visitor

Frodocam

Buckeye of Hilliard

Chris and Chad Saladin make wonderful, amazing and awesome photographs of the peregrine falcons of Ohio. This is one of the legendary Buckeye of Hilliard. A tiercel with a great personality, who loved to drink water, loved to take a bath, mated with his partner all year long and enjoyed life to the fullest. Buckeye deceased in 2006, but his spirit is still with us. What a beautiful peregrine falcon he was. Rocky a tiercel from his last offspring in 2006 is now the resident male at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park nestsite!

Quest of Rochester

Our beautiful young falconlady is having a great time. And she is doing just fine.

Quest is still at the Massachusettsshore and does not seem to have any plans to move.

She spent the past week exploring State Route #6 on Cape Cod, where she is presumably dining on tasty shorebirds. She seems to be an excellent hunter and no signs of hunger what so ever. Good for her!

Our Quest was seen and photographed by Shawn Carey, a professional wildlife photographer and a member of the Massachusetts Audubon Society. On August 17th Shawn Carey was photographing at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary on the cape, when he came across our Quest! Shawn took some fantastic photos of Quest:

Watch them here, they are amazing!

http://shawncarey.zenfolio.com/p971267549/?photo=h02FC1E9F#50077343



August 22


Quest continued her eastward trek reaching the Massachusetts coast in the first week of August. She was visiting tony Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket and Cape Cod. Data indicate that she’s having a great time exploring the far eastern reaches of the US. Most of Mariah’s offspring whose locations are known– and all that previously had transmitters– went north or west. So Quest’s eastern movement is an unexpected surprise.

Read more on Imprints:
http://rfalconcam.com/imprints/

Frdodcam: a quick visit and off you go

Eemsmond: not viable eggs

Remember the Eemsmond nestsite?
The female laid her first egg om March 12, and completed her clutch of 4 on March 20. With no breaks incubation went on for 35 days without a hatch. Both parents continued incubation during April, May en June. It was clear that something was very wrong.
On July 1 the 4 eggs were taken from the nestbox.
They were scanned and it turned out that there were no embryo's in either of the 4 eggs. Of course after 103 days of incubation the contents of the egg were in a severe state of decomposition. That's why it is not possible to find traces of sperm. The eggs turned out not to be viable.

We have all seen that the 2 peregrines mated. We think the male peregrine is not a new one. But if he is and still immature, that could be a cause of eggs being not viable. He does not have a band, so it is very difficult to be sure.

There are lots of possibilities that cause not viable eggs.
Peregrine falcons stay fertile until their dying day. And when they are sick which could cause infertility they do not mate and do not lay eggs.

During the DDT crisis many eggs were not viable because of this horrible stuff prevented the fertility of the female. And caused thin eggshell which caused an early death of th embryo.
Enviromental polution is still a serious danger to the Peregrine falcon. New enviromental toxins like Deca-BDE, PCB have already been measured in peregrine falcons in very high dosages, as well as in many other species, humans included.

Beside this there a lot of micro organisms ( virus, bacteria, parasites) which can cause death of the blastoderm before it becomes an embryo. This is visible by a bloodring in the eggcontent. But after such a long incubation and a decomposed content it is impossible to say what caused these egg to be not viable. And that's a shame. We sure would have liked to know what caused this.

Frodocam

Some pics from August 26. Since then not a single peregrine in front of the webcam at any time of day or night. They sure do take their time this year. It might not be until the second half of september before we see an egg. Either here or at the Alcoa Anglesea nestsite.

Terminal Tower: bonding behaviour

Bonding behaviour in autumn

After the youngsters have left the nestsite we always see the adults, especially the male come back to the scrape. He is spending many hours over there standing in the entrance, perching. He will eventually go inside and start scraping bowles.

Many people have asked me, is there gonna be a new clutch. No way! Starting a clutch has everything to do with androgens, and the production of these is being influencend by the increasing amount of daylight hours in the spring. Now that summer is blooming, the daylight hours are not increasing anymore. The androgenlevels are dropping.





This behaviour of the male is all about bonding to the site. And to his partner. After the juvies have left the nestsite is his again. This is the site he picked for his female, it is his choice, his estate in a way and he is taking it back. He leaves his footprint. He is marking it again with bowles.

The female will enter as well and they will display in courtship behaviour: head-bow-low, eechupping. This is bonding behaviour, a conformation to eachother of the bond they have. Like a renewal of the vows in a way. It may even envolve copulations when the juvi's are still around.

So no second clutches but a very special bonding behaviour: we belong together. We have raised and fledged yet another healthy couple of juveniles. And we will do that together the next time at this nestsite.





Although copulations are only with the purpose of reproduction in the avian world, here it has a second function. The one of bonding, of confirming the pairbond. We see copulations as well during territorial disputes, With the same function: I belong to you, you belong to me. You'll make me strong I will fight for you.
And that makes these exeptional beings even more special.

No sign of Victory

On Friday August 22 Victory was released. She flew off real strong.
Many people have been afraid she would fly straight to the Rhodes Tower, since she was the resident female until she got her self badly injured 2 years ago. But fortunately we have not seen her at the nestside yet.
Let's hope it stays that way. Territorial battles are awful, and no one wants either bird to be wounded or killed.

Frodocam: anybody home?

Frodocam: short visit

Only a very short visit today.

Ohio Columbus: Victory released

Today there was this wonderful news about the release of Victory of Columbus Ohio back into the wild.

Victory was hatched in Toledo in 2002, and showed up at the Rhodes Tower nestsite in Columbus in 2003. She bonded with the resident male Bandit, but no eggs were produced likely due to her young age. By nesting season 2004, Bandit had been replaced by Orville. Victory and Orville claimed the downtown Columbus territory but again, no eggs were produced. In 2005 however there were 2 young and in 2006, Victory and Orville successfully raised 4 young. But around Labourday 2006 Victory was found badly injured to her left wing.

She was taken into rehab and 5 pins were placed in her wing in order to keep everything in place while the bone heals. When a wing is injured the bones will cure but a damaged tendon will not. Often when a peregrine flies into wire the patagial tendon is so badly damaged it will not heal and the peregrine is grounded for the rest of it's life. Fortunately it turned out that this was not the case with Victory. The wing healed.

A peregrine falcon has enormous flightmuscles which allows her to fly the way she does: fast. Those muscles are used on a daily basis and stay in great shape that way. They are working out every day. Victory was grounded for months. So as soon as her wing wa shealed she had to start flying againa. Victory was housed in a large flight cage and her “therapy” consisted of dedicated volunteers Juanita and Rita Woods and others at the Ohio Wildlife Center forcing her to fly several times a day in order for the wings to be excised on a regular basis. It was a slow process.

She showed strong lift and powerbut tired easily. A huge problem was that several of her flight feathers were broken, an unfortunate occurrence when a bird of prey is kept inside of a cage. So, the next stage in her treatment was to give her “new” feathers to replace the broken ones through the process of imping. The imping of feathers was developed by falconers and uses unbroken feathers from one bird to repair the feathers of another. Donor feathers are obtained from other birds that have died or live birds that have molted. Individual feathers have a unique shape and length and must be matched closely before being joined to the remaining shaft on the bird.





In 2005 a canadian falcon Y/5, that spent some time on the Rhodes Tower died. The carcass was kept in the district freezer for possible education use in the future. Some flight feathers of this female had the right length and shape for Victory. And so Victory got herself in between molts a new set of imped flightfeathers with which she could fly much better. But still a lot of feathers were broken. It was now february 2007.

In April 2007 she was transferred to a falconer who was volunteering his time to work with her. Because of the loss of so many feathers, she had to be held until after her next molt which would be in in summer 2007. Additional feathers were imped but not with the purpose of helping her fly. Rather, the second round of imped feathers were intended to help support the new feathers as they grew back in. It is imperative that the new feathers not be damaged which would be a major setback. She was adjusting well to her new surroundings.

At the beginning of 2008 Victory had a whole new set of feathers after her molt and she was doing really well, but a release only weeks before the breeding season would not be wise. For she would fly straight back to her territory at the Rhodes Tower where Scout and Orville were engaged in courtship. No one wanted a bloody territorial dispute. So Victory continued her training at the falconer and became the strong and healthy feisty falcon she used to be.

And so it became August 22 2008. Victory became her second chance in the wild. She was released far away from the Rhodes Tower and taken to a rural location in southern Ohio. The location was selected so that if she does fly back to Columbus it will take her at least a few days during which time she can build up her strength and get back into wild flight condition and be in better shape for a territorial battle. At least if she does come back. Let's hope she does not.



Photo: Juanita Woods

But the fact is that in her mind she still is the resident female of the Rhodes Tower. She was at the time she got injured. She was not driven out by another female. So it might well be she flies straight back. On the other hand she was in rehab for 2 years. Her first goal will be, has to be to stay alive, to catch prey and stay save. To become the strong flyer she was before the injury.
Let's hope and pray she will fly further south and find herself a nice young tiercel with whom she will start all over again.

It must have been a hard decision for the Ohio Wildlife Biologists, but I think it is the only right one. She must be given the chance to be free, fly free and have a second chance at life in the wild.
It is great what they have accomplished to nurse and train this beautiful falcon back to freedom.
Wonderful job!

Read more:

http://ohioperegrinefalcons.blogspot.com/2008/08/victory-for-victory.html

Frodo & Frieda at the scrape

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