Hi,
Here is a quick summary of the history of the WAMU peregrines in Seattle.
The original pair of adults, named Stewart and Virginia, first nested on WAMU in 1994. Virginia was killed in mid-season by a collision with a window. She was replaced almost immediately by Bell. This pair produced many young over the years before passing on, Bell in 2005.
No birds nested at WAMU in 2005.
We had a new pair in 2006 and banded two of their young.
Last year (2007), a remarkable thing happened on the nest box. Ruth Taylor discovered 8 eggs very early in the nesting season. Four eggs are a normal size clutch. We suspect, but have no direct observations, that two different females laid their eggs together in the box, perhaps sequentially after one had died. All we know is that the site failed, i.e. no eggs hatched. Peregrines are just not big enough to incubate that number of eggs successfully.
This year (2008), an unbanded pair laid and hatched 3 eggs successfully. Each one of the eyasses later died of unknown causes on the nest ledge. I think they were 10, 14 and 16 days old but Ruth Taylor will definitely have the exact ages.
The first chick was removed by one of the adults. When the second chick died, Denise Kolb of Wright-Runstad arranged to take Martin Muller over the side, 56 stories up on the window washing stage, to retrieve the chick. The third chick died sometime on Friday night and on Saturday, Denise went over again and picked it up too. We cannot thank her enough for all of her help.
We have experienced mortality among young peregrines at WAMU several times in the first two days after hatching, especially when the temperature is below freezing in March. We have also had fledglings die shortly after fledging from frounce, a parasite carried by pigeons in Seattle. But we have never seen young die at this intermediate stage in their development before in Seattle.
So we found this unusual enough to ask the WSDFW if we could try to find out why they were dying. They share our interest and have kindly arranged to have two of the nestlings shipped to the WSU lab for analysis. Dr. Lindsay Oaks is heading the effort and tells me that we should have some results in about a week. We'll let everyone know when we do.
It is possible that the deaths were caused by something totally normal. Perhaps the young have an early case of frounce. But since we do not know exactly what is involved, we thought it important enough to determine the cause.
And thanks to all of the people that are assisting with this effort.

Bud Anderson
Falcon Research Group
Box 248
Bow, WA 98232 USA
(360) 757-1911 (office)
(206) 962-7838 (cell)
bud at frg.org