Urban Falcons

Indianapolis has a nesting pair of perigrine falcons downtown. Today I heard a thunk at my front door window and when I looked out there was one of the young falcons with a dove in his claws sitting on the porch.

I did make a noise and he flew away with his lunch since I did not want dove parts all over my porch. We wondered why there seemed to be fewer birds around and the dove with a nest on our digital TV disk vanished after laying two eggs. Mystery solved.

We have had racoon, possum, squirrel, and now falcons downtown. Few stray dogs and cats.

We have a nesting pair of red-tailed hawks on the roof of an office building in my city. While I'm sure the local birds are being stalked,I keep waiting for one of the many birdwatchers to forget where they are and walk out into the extremely busy road to get a better look and get hit by a car. The birdwatchers are lining both sides of the road on the weekends and it's a bit nerve-wracking as they don't pay attention to traffic at all. A bunch invaded a parking lot I was parked in last weekend because one of the adults had carried some prey to the roof of a building there. I waited 10 minutes and then had to get out of my car to ask them to move out of the way so I could leave. I may not get to Trader Joe's again until the nest is empty.

They set up a nest cam here for nesting season. We also have a huge number of watchers.

South Bend has had a pair of Peregrine falcons nesting downtown for a number of years. Zephyr and Guinevere are raising 2 chicks this year, with a little difficulty as Zephyr lost a foot to an accident last winter and has to do his hunting with only one set of talons, but he is managing! The web cam on their nest is at www.southbendin.gov/falcam.

I love watching online bird nests! The Peregrine Fund - World Center for Birds of Prey is just outside of Boise, and is a wonderful place. Right now they're working to save California condors from extinction. And of course we have a Peregrine falcon "nest" downtown too which I've been watching, but they've fledged so I don't see them much anymore. I also watch a Kestrel nest box out at the Peregrine Center, but they've fledged too. We have nesting Osprey at a lake outside of town, and they have three young'uns. Usually can only see their heads tho. Daddy likes to re-arrange the nest and brings in more branches every so often. And there's another Osprey nest on top of a telephone pole on our way to church -- seems too far away from the Boise River, but obviously they like it there. Looks like they have two babies. I used to watch two hummingbird nests. I also watch a bald eagle nest, but the kids have gotten so big now! They're still hanging around the nest tho. AND, a puffin nest in the Shetland Islands! They're seven hours ahead of us, so I have to time my watching so it's daylight. I've checked a couple of times recently and nobody's been on the nest and I can kinda see an egg? but I'm not sure. I don't know if she's abandoned it or what.

Tweety, thanks for the link to the South Bend falcons! Sweetana3, if you have a link to your nests it would be cool if you posted it. Thanks!

Here are our falcons: www.cbc.ca/manitoba/features/falcon/
The chicks are pretty active now. I like to watch them preen their feathers. Amazing how babies just know what to do. I've yet to catch the parents feeding them or anything yet -you have to watch all day, I think.