Another possibility is that the peregrines have found migrants attracted to
the city lights that are either confused or injured. But then again, we
don't seem to find piles of cuckoos on the streets of Seattle.


Nigel Ball
Bainbridge Island
nball001 at msn.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Martin Muller <MartinMuller at classic.msn.com>
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, December 13, 1997 10:18 AM
Subject: Re: Weird Urban Peregrine Prey (was: rare-bird "sighting")


>Michael Price speculates/writes:
>
>>a) that Sabine's Gull are when migrating overland
>>sometimes to often nocturnal migrants (apparently
>>they're fairly closely related to Swallow-tailed Gulls
>>Larus furcatus, which *are* nocturnal);
>>b) both cuckoos are--no speculation here, we know-
>>-also nocturnal migrants as well as being fairly lousy
>>fliers and
>>c) that when it suits them, Peregrines are (partially)
>>nocturnal hunters on those passing nocturnal migrants
>>that would normally overfly otherwise.
>
>After February I hope to get back to a project I started two years ago:
>analysis of two nesting seasons worth of time-lapse video (day and night)
of
>the downtown Seattle peregrines. The "translation" from video to database
is
>complete, it's a matter of crunching the numbers, doing literature
research,
>and writing it up. Among some of the interesting tidbits we will be able to
>calculate from this: amount of incubation (probably to the minute) each egg
>received during the '96 season, when the eggs had markings which allowed
>individual recognition. Little things like that.
>
>Anyway, I can tell you that Stewart "loved" going out at night (as between
>midnight and two AM) and deliver prey, during migration time. From the
looks
>of it, fresh prey (limp, intact, unplucked). Often high-contrast species,
like
>for instance American Goldfinch, but also less-colorful, just more
>inexperienced immature European Starlings.
>
>During the early morning hours Stewart liked (still does I presume) to
perch
>on the very top of the Washington Mutual Tower, 60+ stories up. He would
sit
>on the east side of the cube on top, and peer around the corner to the west
>side (get that image? He literally sits there, body hidden, head sticking
>around the corner). From there he has an unobstructed view of Elliott Bay.
>Often he starts his stoop on some potential meal from up there, to the
west. I
>always envisioned him doing the same thing at night, when the crossing from
>West Seattle to Magnolia, 2 1/2 miles of open water, must make some of
these
>smaller, slower, birds as vulnerable as, dare I say, sitting ducks. Or he
>might just patrol the bay from great height.
>Sometime, when I experience a sleepless night (no jokes please) during the
>nesting season, I'll spend it out there to verify his actual hunting during
>the night.
>
>BTW, I never saw so many Yellow-headed Blackbirds in Western Washington as
>during the video-tape analysis; prey deliveries to the peregrine nest box.
>
>Martin Muller, Seattle
>MartinMuller at msn.com
>