!!! Despite the ongoing painting at the lower elevations below the nest ledge, its still life as usual on the upper ledges!
February 20, 2015 - Etobicoke - Sun Life Centre
CPF Postmaster Reports:
February 20th - 2015
Despite the record cold temps here in southern Ontario, and the on-going painting of the building at the lower elevations, its life as usual on the nest ledge as clearly seen via the nest web cams! A quick peek, and a quick snapshot, finds one of the resident adults on the nest ledge eating a fresh kill for the morning breakfast.
Pigeons beware,, its still not a safe place to be if you are a pigeon!!
That being said, we have confirmed reports of both O’Connor and Jack being the resident adults on site with no evidence of any territorial challenges having been observed of late. While the season is still very early, and with the southern wintering over migrant peregrines not yet on their way back from the far south wintering grounds, their still is plenty of time for drama when the season starts to heat up!!
Lets hope that Jack stays a little closer to his Etobicoke Bloor & Islington territory this spring to help O’Connor guard and watch over the territory! As many of you know, Jack has had a girlfriend at another nest site in west Etobicoke for several years now, and has been successfully producing offspring at this other nest site simultaneously. He has been double-timing it with both O’Connor and another adult female at the other nest site and has so far been successful in his efforts in holding two different nest site territories, both with young having been produced at same!!
Again, time will tell as to whether he will be able to keep this up for much longer given all of the recent competition and territorial squabbles that have been observed of late!
On another note, we have been successfull in building the new nest tray that will eventually replace the other nest tray that is in much need of replacement!
With a huge thank you to the new building management who sponsored and funded the new nest tray!
Our visit to the nest ledge last fall while we spent some time with the painters on the swing stage, gave us a great opportunity to inspect the aging nest tray. While it has held-up well for the past 17 years, it is in much need of being replaced! We were able to get a few more screws in it and topped it up with some pea-gravel, we will realize that it must be replaced soon, as it has succumb to the harsh elements over the last 17 years, and is starting to show signs of rot.
We’re hoping that we will be able get a ride with the window washers early this spring before the nesting season to replace the old nest tray with one of our new and improved models. We are now building all of the new nest boxes and nest trays out of the new marine poly-composite material that already comes pre-coloured at the manufacturing process and no-longer needs to be re-stained every few years!! The new marine composite material is UV and water resistant!!
This new composite material is better than the older pressure treated material, and even better than the cedar material that we once used. While the new material is very expensive, very heavy and very difficult to work with, weighting twice the weight of the equivalent sized wood boards, having to pre-drill everything and requiring special fasteners and screws, its a material that comes with a 25 year warrantee and will not succumb to the harsh weather elements that all of the nest boxes and nest tray have had to deal with. Also remembering, that access to most of the nest ledges is expensive and complicated due the fact that we require other professionals, outside equipment and operators to get us to many of the nest ledges. Both timing and the weather also presents some challenges for all to be able to get to the nest ledges to do any maintenance on the nest ledges.
Stay tuned……..
