Site Check at MEC; Hmmmmm…
July 30, 2012 - Mississauga - Executive Centre
Tracy Simpson Reports:
Our last stop yesterday ended up at the Mississauga Executive Centre site to check up on the resident male, Sante, and the new female that arrived a few months ago. She has so far eluded identification by even the sharpest eyes and the most powerful scopes we could carry. I have oodles of pictures of her and her black over green recovery band but the identifying numbers and letters are still a mystery.
When we arrived, we found Sante on the northern side of the nest building tucked back in on one of the ledges. Bruce took off walking north and I walked the perimeters of MEC 2, 3 and 4 but to no avail. No sign of the new female on site. As I came back around MEC 3, I looked for Sante and he was already gone. Bruce and I stayed for a while but neither adult returned so we decided to head north to the Hurontario and Eglinton area where we last saw Janet, the sole surviving juvenile. Last time that Bruce and I found her, she was well flighted and holding her own against this new female with help from the resident male. Bruce and I both felt that, from our subsequent observations, that Sante had taken her offsite to continue with her training as the adult male would regularly disappear from the site, taking off with a purpose even though he was already full of food. We have yet to ascertain just exactly where that is but it would seem that she changes locations within a 5km radius of the nest building but always keeps her distance, never crossing that imaginary territorial line drawn by the new female.
Up at Hurontario and Eglinton, I drove the neighborhood searching for any sign of a peregrine. I checked all of the buildings as best I could given that there is a large cluster of condos in that area with lots of great nooks and crannies. At just after 4pm, we still had no sign and so Bruce left for the day. I continued to search; lo and behold, I found an adult female! She was perched on a railing of a maintenance catwalk about 25 stories up on one of the western condos in the cluster. I pulled out the scope to confirm her identity and… …wait a minute… …this female was banded black over red!! I watched her for the next 4 hours and her behaviour was quite odd. She was acting like a silly juvenile at times which leads me to believe she is quite young, possibly 2 or 3 years old given her full adult colors. I must have rubbed my eyes and shaken my head a dozen times watching this bird and doubting what I was seeing. Alas, facts are facts and this was indeed a different female to the one currently holding fast at MEC. I raced back to MEC 1 to see if I could find an adult at the site… …no one. I drove around the back of MEC 4 and scoped the buildings, then the area. I found an adult female hunting off of the comm. tower on top of the Kaneff building on the south side of Burnhamthorpe. I could not see from that distance if she was banded so I tried to position myself somewhere within the residential neighborhood to the south for a confirmation look. I was unable, in the fading light, to confirm anything other than that this was an adult female.
I headed back to MEC and again was unable to locate an adult on any of the buildings. With the injury to the unbanded resident female back in May, this territory has been unsettled. It remains to be seen who the resident female will be here and I will be back every chance that I get until it is sorted out.