It’s the quiet time of the year for local peregrine falcons as they head out in to their extended territories to hunt and explore. With a fresh autumn season on us the days are slowly cooling off and shortening again. Most days we will receive a visit mainly from the likes of Swift or Solo; this brief clip shows Swift taking an interest in the eyrie, with a little instinctive gravel scraping.
We will head up the tower in the next month or so to clean out feathers, rubbish etc and add a fresh layer of pea gravel, in readiness for winter.
Sure is great to have some news again of your peregrine family! I guess it won’t be long now, till we won’t be hearing much from you. And here in Winnipeg, Canada, our peregrines are expected back sometime around the end of March. I was wondering, though, how far do your falcons migrate to?
Hi Kathy!
It has been quiet lately up the tower, and will probably be even quieter over the next 3-4 months before winter hits hard and Beau and Swift look at getting together again. We may only have a short time left with young Solo as she’ll probably be booted from the area to go and find her own “digs”. Our macropus subspecies doesn’t migrate, one factor being the steady climate, and they will roughly stay in their own territory for the entire year. Which means we’re really lucky as we’ll get close to 12 months of observation with them! Without current banding permission it means it’s really hard to track the birds as they grow up, but we’re working on that legality at the moment.
Looking forward to hearing about your local familes there shortly. Not long to wait now; that first sighting will be exciting!!
Scott
I have great news to share with you, Scott & Cilla!!! This afternoon, we have had our 1st sighting of the return of our migrating peregrines here in Winnipeg, Canada! This is a very exciting day for us since we weren’t expecting them back for another 2 weeks! If anyone wants to check out our Forum link, here it is… http://www.species-at-risk.mb.ca/projects/pfrp/forum/programs/index.php/topic,2580.msg67875.html#new
Hi Kathy,
That’s wonderful news! Two weeks early too – could that due to a good or bad season at all, or other known factors? We’ll keep up to the play on this lot with you. I’d tell Solo over here about it but I think I know that face she’d give us 😐 Have bookmarked the Forum on my browser again; it’s going to get exciting again.
Thanks for letting us know …
Scott