Tower City

Over the past few weeks, the staff members have tried to schedule a visit to Tower City, so we could visit a new nest of Peregrine Falcons. However, it kept being cancelled up until last Wednesday. So, we (staff and senior project members) piled into a van with Harvey Webster, the head of Perkins. We drove off to Tower City to visit the two new baby falcons sitting up on a 12th floor ledge. There is quite a bit of history that goes behind that ledge however I'll just give an overview. Back in the 90's, Peregrine falcons were declining in number. It was at first unclear why. It was found that the number of adult falcons was the same however the number of eggs that successful hatched had decreased dramatically. After quite a bit of research it was found that pesticides (I forget the exact kind) that were supposedly un-harmful to all animals and only killed insects were affecting the shell thickness of falcon eggs. After the climax of the pesticide use had passed, a crew of falcon lovers in the Cleveland area, including Harvey Webster, started to scout out locations for nests to be placed so that falcons could lay their eggs unharmed. One of the very popular locations was on the 12th floor window ledge of Tower City. This ledge has been used every year since then for falcons to lay their eggs in peace. Last week, we visited that site where a couple of falcons, SJ and Boomer, had laid 4 eggs. Unfortunately 2 eggs did not hatch, however the 2 that did are doing wonderful. In the picture below you can see that they are losing their baby fuzz and are starting to grow in their mature feathers. Once the mature feathers come in they can start learning to fly and such but until then, they are trapped on that ledge. The father, Boomer continuously flew around us and stood right outside the window where we were looking out, protecting his youngsters. The mother perched directly above her babies and did not move the entire time, but did make quite a bit of noise to try and get us to leave.