Downtown Living – A Feathered Family
Earlier this week my aunt told me about a new type of family living in downtown Hartford – a family of peregrine falcons nesting on the Travelers Tower. (Thanks, Billie!)
Check out the Peregrine Watch at Travelers Tower website for more information about our feathered neighbors. The current pair has been nesting on the tower since 1997, becoming established residents. There are two “FalCams” pointed at the nest and a lot of interesting history and photos.
Three of the eggs have hatched so far. The timeline on the site says that this is an all-summer event with the chicks getting their feathers throughout June, learning to fly later in July, and finally leaving the nest in the August-September timeframe.
No word on names for the young ones…
The “exciting” part is to be downtown and find pieces of pigeons lying around after the falcons have done their hunting for the day.
I am NOT making that up – I’ve seen the body parts myself off and on through the years the falcons have been up on the tower, and other long-time downtown workers can vouch for that.
Survival of the fittest!
Thanks for the reminder about this great web cam. The fourth egg disappeared, so it must have hatched, but have you seen a fourth chick?
I have not seen a fourth chick, and don’t know what happened to the egg. One of the sections on the website talk about investigating unhatched eggs in previous years. Perhaps the researchers have removed the egg since it did not hatch within a few days of the other three.
Looking at the webcam, it appears the chicks have now been banded. The unhatched egg was probably picked up at the same time.
According to the travelers website, there was a new pair in 2007. Not sure if this year’s parents are the same.
http://falconcam.travelers.com/