Canadian Peregrine Foundation -- Etobicoke Archives: Mar/Apr 2000

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March - April 2000

Sunday April 23, 2000
Marcel Gahbauer reports: Good news - the red-tailed hawk that was found badly injured near the Etobicoke nest on February 12 was successfully rehabilitated at the Ontario Veterinary College's Wild Bird Clinic, and was released back to the wild on March 23 in good health.

As for the peregrines, Angel and Toby continue to both take shifts on the eggs. We have already passed the halfway point of incubation, and should be expecting the first hatch within two weeks or less. No doubt both adults will welcome a change of pace when the chicks hatch.

Friday April 7, 2000
Marcel Gahbauer reports: Yesterday around noon Nicole Bellamy and I stopped by the Etobicoke Falcon Watch Centre and observed Angel incubating the four eggs. She was quite relaxed, but did react slightly when Toby landed further down the ledge, at the base of the camera. At one point Angel stood halfway up and rotated the eggs, then resumed incubation immediately.

We are not quite certain when all of the eggs were laid. We know the first one was there on March 27, and the second on March 29. The third could have been either on March 31 or April 1, while the last one was likely laid on April 3 (but could have been on April 2). Assuming a standard incubation period of almost five weeks from the time the last egg was laid, we should be expecting a hatch some time between May 4 and 7.

Friday March 31, 2000
Marcel Gahbauer reports: I have been watching the Etobicoke Webcam almost without interruption this morning, and have yet to get a clear view of the eggs! There was a second egg in the nest on Wednesday morning, and we are half expecting there to be a third one today, but Angel has been very protective. The only time I have seen her off the eggs was a brief spell around 10:30 when she stood on the edge of the box preening her feathers, but the shadow cast by her made it impossible to see the eggs clearly. It seems that with every passing day, the peregrines here (Angel in particular) are spending longer periods incubating the eggs.

Monday March 27, 2000
Marcel Gahbauer reports: An update on the chaotic situation in Etobicoke is long overdue. My apologies for the long wait; it would appear the web-gremlins had a particular grudge against the Etobicoke page, and I was unable to access it for the past few weeks.

The big news is that we already have an egg! (See the newest photo in the Etobicoke Photo Gallery). This is several days ahead of last year, when the first one was spotted in the nest on April 2. The twist is that this egg was produced by Angel, not Alberta...

To explain this, I need to backtrack a bit. Over the past three weeks, we have been watching the webcam from the office most days, and have also visited the Etobicoke site itself on several occasions. Most of the time we have spotted Toby and/or Angel, with both of them spending quite a bit of time standing on or beside the nest box itself. Recently, both have been entering the nest box to scrape the gravel into a bowl in preparation for eggs.

But throughout this time, a third peregrine was being seen. In early March, I spotted her on the nest, had a good luck at her, and was quite certain that it was Alberta back at her rightful place. But that was the last time that I saw this "third bird". Many others have spotted her since then, but always at too great a distance to be able to identify her beyond being a female other than Angel. To my knowledge, the last time she was seen was late last week, around March 23 or 24.

So what happened this spring to change the status quo? Who knows - maybe Angel fiercely chased Alberta away at some point, or maybe Alberta just wasn't up to fighting for her territory like she did last spring. Possibly Alberta found another (more faithful?) partner on her winter sojourn, and is setting up territory somewhere else, as yet undiscovered. Whatever the case may be, it now looks fairly certain that we will be watching Angel and Toby at the nest this spring, and we hope that Angel will turn out to be as good a mother as Alberta was the past three years.

The egg was first reported around 8:15 am today, but it could have been laid overnight. If all goes according to form, there should be a second one on Wednesday. Certainly Angel's devotion to the egg so far (she has been incubating it for most of the day) indicates she will be a protective mother. Keep checking for more frequent updates from now on.

Saturday March 4, 2000
Nancy van der Poorten reports: We saw the peregrines mating, briefly, at about 5:30 pm. Impossible to tell who the female was but the size difference between male and female is very striking. The female had been sitting on the top of the west-most building for about 1/2 hour but flew away soon after mating.

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