St. Mary’s Peregrines Still Active and Buffy is Still Present.
April 08, 2013 - Bowmanville - St Mary's Cement
Tracy Simpson Reports:
I had the pleasure of delivering our Project School Visit program to students in the Bowmanville area this week and made a point of stopping in at St. Mary’s Cement to check in on the nesting progress there. Last year, after assisting in the rescue and banding of a juvenile female that the plant staff named Madison, Mark and I went out and spent some time monitoring the resident adult pair. We were able to identify the adult female by her solid black recovery band bearing the markings rotated Y over O. Of note was that her recovery band was on her right leg instead of her left. This female is Buffy who hatched in 2000 at the London TD Tower to George and Calypso and was raised by George alone after Calypso was fatally struck by lightning . We were delighted to see that a juvenile from that nesting season had survived and has gone on to breed highlighting the great job George did on his own. While we were successful in getting an identification on the female, the male was more elusive and all we knew was that he was also wearing a solid black recovery band indicating he was hatched in Ontario.
I arrived on site in the morning and met up with Nick who graciously took the time to assist me in investigating the silos that the resident adults were interested in last year. A full search of the silo area initially yielded evidence of the peregrines presence but they were not readily visible. At the base of the east silo, I took a picture of the crevice that had evidence of whitewash and to my astonishment, I found the resident female, Buffy, at the far right of the ledge. From the angle that we were standing at it was difficult to see whether she was fully lying down or not but the displacement of the feathers on her back led me to believe that she was in fact lying down. The spot that she has chosen is completely inaccessible and only viewable from the ground level and so we cannot be certain whether she has an egg yet or not. During our observation period, the male did not make an appearance and a scan of the area didn’t reveal his location. We will be keeping a watchful eye on the St. Mary’s pair for signs of nesting and further monitoring will be conducted to determine if Buffy and her mate, who has yet to be identified, will be nesting this year. My thanks to Nick, Fabio, Ana and the excellent staff at St. Mary’s Cement for their help today and I look forward to our next visit.
Pictures will be posted soon!