May 12, 2009 - Scarborough - Bell
Mark Nash Reports:
Well, it appears that our mystery birds are back, and this time they seem pretty serious about things! Another late night at the CPF office had us passing Pharmacy and Eglinton after 7pm only to see two adult peregrines hanging around the old hack box. We pulled off and turned in to take a closer look. After more than 2 hours of watching, well into the darkness, the two adult peregrines were observed in and out of the hack box on at least four occasions, and spent time together in the hack box out of our sight for several minutes at a time. Lots of vocalizing and eee-chupping going on throughout the entire two hours. While we didn’t see any copulations, we stayed until darkness in anticipation that might witness something to indicate that the two mystery birds were attempting to set up house. Sadly, we only had a point and shoot camera on hand, and were unable to get any good photos. No ID’s were confirmed. We’ll be watching the site very closely from here on in. Even “Portly” the groundhog was on hand to take a look at what all of the fuss was about. Stay tuned……
Posted on May 12, 2009 11:41 pm
May 06, 2009 - Scarborough - Bell
Mark Nash Reports:
2008 has been a very interesting year at the old Scarborough Bell hack site. Throughout the entire year, there has been many peregrine visitors observed on site at the Bell building,,, all taking a interest in the old hack box. We have observed single peregrines, and pairs of peregrines that have stayed for days and weeks at a time. Sadly, individual band numbers have been very difficult to record as they have rarely given us an opportunity to get a detailed look, in addition to being too dark, too snowy or too rainy.
Throughout the winter of 2008 2009, right up to and including late February 2009, their has been an adult pair observed daily in and around the hack box by both myself and Marion, in addition to Bruce who has also kept a close eye on the site. Never have we been able to catch anything more than a poor picture, and always caught us either without our scope, zoom camera or the bins at hand, and its been raining, snowing, or late in the day and very poor light. Needless to say, the identity of these two mystery peregrines is still unknown.
What we can confirm is that both peregrines are adults, both are banded, with the adult female having a Black over Green band, and the adult male has a solid black band.
By the end of February 2009., both birds disappeared and have not been seen again since. I have attached several of the many poor photos that we were able to shoot. Sorry for the bad photos, but what would you expect fron a “point & shoot” camera.
Given that we all pass the site everyday on our way into work, we will continue to watch the site and hopefully we will have future activity to report.
Posted on May 6, 2009 12:35 pm
