24 February 2025
If you happen to watch courtship amongst bald eagles or red-tailed hawks you’ve seen that it consists of flying collectively, perching collectively, and bringing sticks to the nest. Peregrine falcons additionally fly collectively however they’ve completely different traditions in terms of shut courtship and nest constructing. Yesterday the Pitt peregrines engaged in these actions as seen on the Nationwide Aviary streaming falconcam.
After a 12 day hiatus, Carla reappeared on digicam and engaged in two courtship bouts with Ecco. Their ledge shows included bowing collectively, vocalizing and touching beaks (see Familiarities on the Cliff). This bowing session lasts about 90 seconds.
Following this encounter, Carla stayed on the nest to do some “nest constructing.” I’ve put these phrases in quote marks as a result of it doesn’t appear to be constructing in any respect. As a substitute she scrapes the gravel together with her toes, then putters and rearranges the stones and bones. There are many tiny hen bones on the gravel left over from final 12 months’s profitable nesting season.
Carla doesn’t add something to the nest. No sticks, no grass. She’s going to lay her eggs within the bowl she and Ecco scrape within the gravel. Her puttering takes twice so long as the bowing session — 3 minutes.
Carla hardly wanted to do any scraping as a result of Ecco has made the scrape deeper day by day whereas she was off digicam. You may see the scrape (bowl) beneath the roof on this photograph.
And right here he’s, digging the scrape on 18 February.
For extra details about peregrine “nest constructing” see this Peregrine FAQ:
