I last reported that Trillium was on 3 eggs. She is still on the scrape but won’t get off long enough for me to view if all 3 are still there. She appears to be in hard incubation. Buffalo Bill stands on guard.
Bruce and I headed out to the Port Colborne area to check up on Buffalo Bill and Trillium who we last saw at the Robin Hood mill 4km to the north up the canal. It appeared that the pair may in fact try to reclutch in a vent on the canal side of the mill and there was much evidence of whitewash indicating they were here most often. This was all due in part to the visit by a juvenile coming into her sub adult year that we believe was Lucky Seven based on her band configuration and tape colours. When we arrived in Port Colborne, we headed to the Robin Hood mill first and all was very quite, too quite for nesting peregrines. We checked the vents and overhangs very carefully and could not locate Trillium or Buffalo Bill. We decided to head down to the ADM mill and see if we could locate the pair there. After scanning the buildings and marina, we located Buffalo Bill on the gridwork of the main building roosting. He sat for quite some time and we decided to wait him out as we were coming into the “witching hour” when peregrines look for the last food of the day. We weren’t disappointed as Bill came off of the tower and stooped low over the canal. He returned to the gridwork shortly with talons empty. After a brief rest, he was off again. This time he went out over the lake and out of our view. He returned in 5 minutes without food for the second time. Suddenly Bruce says, “Here he comes!” and he wasn’t kidding! Bill came right over our heads fairly low and on a mission. He flew past the marina towards town and went into a spectacular stoop behind some distant trees. We waited for his return but after 40 minutes he was still absent. Success!! We are sure he was chowing down somewhere and so we left for the drive hack to the Raptor Centre. With the observations of new eggs that Doug has posted, this all makes sense. Bill was onsite for an hour and a half and staying very close to the main building. Hopefully Buffalo Bill and Trillium can now enjoy a bit more privacy and we will eagerly await the potential hatch of young. A huge thank you to Doug and the ADM team for keeping a sharp eye on their pair and being such awesome hosts.
The pictures aren’t great as Bill caught me by surprise but I have added a couple of him whipping through.
I would like to report that our resident female is sitting on 3 new eggs. Hopefully all goes well this time.
I was able to get to the ADM “satellite” nest (aka Robin Hood)Â & there was no activity. However, the nest is hard to get a site line on. Perhaps Trillium was on eggs & Buffalo Bill was back at ADM with the Sub adult. I’ll keep an eye on them.
As reported by Tracy Simpson after her and Bruce Massey’s visit here, our resident falcons have found a new nesting site. It is at a location about 5 km North of our facility. With all the stress causing Trillum to destroy her eggs here (presumibly because of the young female from Niagara Falls) they have decided to give it another shot at a different location. However, there is still activity in the nest box here. The Sub adult intruder has been hanging out at our site & I think she has set up shop in our nest box. Buffalo Bill may have his hands full servicing both these girls. More to come!!
Doug Garbutt and the staff at the ADM Mills have been watching their resident adult peregrines, Trillium and Buffalo Bill, rather closely since Trillium consumed both of her eggs by April 5th. What made matters more complex is that the monitor at the mill had failed and they were now blind to the activities inside the nest box. All that they could be certain about is that Trillium was seen on the monitor consuming her two eggs and that had staff at the mill very concerned about their peregrines. As if this story wasn’t complex enough, on one of Doug’s recent bike rides through the park beside the northern mill in town operated by Horizon Milling, he heard a familiar call, looked up and found a pair of peregrines on the east face of the mill. Well, who was this now. Are there two pairs in Port Colborne? Is this Buffalo Bill and Trillium? Bruce Massey and I went down this past weekend to see if we could help sort out some of the mysteries surrounding this new development.
When we arrived we met up with Doug and travelled straight to the northern mill. When we arrived, the winds were howling and so were the peregrines! Absolutely there were two peregrines on site, one in the air and one perched on a vent cover on the east face of the main building. The roosting bird took to the air and now both birds were up and flying. Both birds flew up and into a vent shaft on the east face of the mill and disappeared from our sight. We could clearly hear them vocalizing in the vent and then suddenly the male appeared and was in the air again. The female flew out shortly thereafter and the two peregrines were now circling. Then a third bird arrived! This peregrine was most definately a female and was now being addressed by the male. This intruder was not being treated with the ferocity I would have expected from an adult challenging the resident pair for their territory and for the most part, the male only circled with this second female. A couple of talon locks were attempted but there was no serious effort to drive out this intruder. Okay…  A non threating yet annoying third peregrine. The adult resident male now escorted this female to the south towards the ADM Mill site and the adult resident female continued to circle above us for a few minutes before following them. This gave me a moment to review some pictures I had taken which revealed some interesting facts.
The male is definately an adult with the same band configuration as Buffalo Bill. I can almost make out the band number and I am 99% sure that it is him. Buffalo Bill has a black over green recovery band marked 68 over R with a silver USFW. The first female is an adult as well and is clearly unbanded which is consistent with the resident adult that ADM staff named Trillium. Ok. So this is the ADM Mills pair. Now onto bird number three. Ha! Juvenile coming into her subadult year! Probably the only thing that saved her from a serious battle is the juvenile plumage that she still wears as her moult has yet to begin.  This now begins to make more sense.Â
We piled into our vehicles and headed down to ADM Mills to see if we could find the three peregrines and what exactly they were up to. When we arrived, the pigeons on site were wheeling madly around so we knew that they were here. It was hard to determine what exactly all three were doing as they were whipping around the mill at Mach 10 and at times were only 20 feet or so over our heads. What I got out of the observations is that the juvenile is being a serious pest. At times we had all three in the air and it was a much more serious situation. Both resident adults were now clearly frustrated and defending their site with talon locks, dives and escorts. This female juvenile was just not getting the message. We walked to the pier side and looked up at the nest box to see if we could find a roosting bird for further confirmation of identity. Just then Trillium burst out of the nest box and whipped through the mill after the juvenile. Back on the other side the dives and madness continued as now the pigeons, gulls and peregrines were all wheeling around in the screaming winds and all we could do was watch. Trillium and Buffalo Bill had finally left our view for over 5 minutes and the juvenile was nowhere to be found. Back to Horizon Mill.
Upon our return, we found Trillium on a vent cover near the top of the mill. There she roosted and preened for quite some time on her own. We suspected that Buffalo Bill was in the area as he had just circled around the back side of the mill when we arrived. After roosting for a while, Trillium flew off of the vent cover, passed Buffalo Bill who was now in the air above the canal and swooped up entering a lower vent shaft. There she stayed and Buffalo Bill took up position near the top of the mill. Bruce was able to get a view of her in the scope and Trillium was now lying down in the vent shaft and gravel picking. We suspect that she either has an egg already or is in the process of producing eggs as we speak.Â
The stress that this juvenile has put on Trillium is most likely the cause for her destruction of the first two eggs in the box at ADM Mills. With the monitor now replaced, the staff at ADM will be watching to see if any peregrines enter the box and just who is in there. The nest box at ADM will not stay empty for long as this location has been fought over almost each and every year. The food is so abundant, the site provides suitable nesting habitat and the location is perfect…  …almost too perfect. Doug will be watching the other mill for signs of nesting by Trillium and Buffalo Bill as well as watching the activity at the ADM box. Bruce and I will be making another trip to help out as well.
The question that I can hear rattling around in your minds is who is the juvenile female???!!! Is she banded? Yes, she is. I have yet to go through all of the pictures but I can tell you that she is an Ontario hatched bird with red tape on her USFW band and we strongly believe that this is Lucky Seven hatched at the Niagara Gorge nest site last year. When I am able to confirm this for certain, you will be the first to know!!
More pictures to come!
At the time of my last report, our resident female was on 2 eggs. With the cold snap, she was on them as if in full incubation mode. Last week within the period of 3 days, she was observed eating the shells of both eggs. She has not been back in the box since then (at least not for any length of time). The male is the same one we have had for the last few years, Buffalo Bill. We think the female is also the resident as she is unbanded. It’s not too early for a 2nd clutch as she produced one last year. We’ll hope for the best.
As of Thursday Mar. 28/13, we have 2 eggs here. We will keep you posted.
We have been without a monitor here until this past Monday Mar. 25/13. When we turned it on there was 1 egg in the scrape. On Mar. 27/13 another egg was laid. I haven’t been back since Thursday, but I would expect there to be another by now. We will keep you posted.
I’m sad to report that we have had another loss of eggs. I did not witness what happened to them but on May 26th full incubation was under way. On May 27th, all 3 eggs were gone. In my last post I reported that there was an intruding falcon on site. Perhaps this had something to do with the situation. It’s discouraging to go through but we are dealing with nature here and it’s out of our control. The falcons are still around but I think it’s unlikely there will be a 3rd attempt at laying eggs.