Some of us who have been watching the 'progress' of the nesting scene on the 1201 Third falconcam, have seen one brown egg appear in the box (on Mon., I believe), the female on & off the egg, no other eggs yet joining #1, and possibly no appearance of another Peregrine (the male). From reading a Birds of North America monograph on Peregrines, it appears that there are several possibilities about what we are seeing: 1. We are tuning in at unlucky times to see more; 2. more eggs still may be laid and then incubation will proceed; 3. something adverse happened to the male and thus this nesting attempt will be unsuccessful; 3. this one egg is unviable, so this round will be a failure; 4. a possible second attempt by the Peregrine pair will occur; and/or a number of other scenarios could explain what we are seeing.

Perhaps one of you Peregrine experts (Bud Anderson, Ed Deal, Martin Muller or others) can address these ideas for the Tweeterage at large and straighten out a bit of the confusion - or refer us to more resources. We'd certainly appreciate a mini-lesson in Peregrine breeding.

Thanks.

Of course, tomorrow (Friday) could bring another egg, a visit by the tiercel (male), or some other happening to give us more hope for the breeding success of this pair. By the way, anyone know if this is the same pair as were on the ledge last year ?

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another note:

many of the Puget Sound Merlin pairs are currently actively starting some visible and audible behaviors associated with this breeding season - should you notice any, please report your observations and the Merlin location to one or all of us who are monitoring Merlins to one extent or another: Ben Vang-Johnson, Kim McCormick and/or myself. Ben & Kim posted a request and their email addresses on Tweeters a week or two ago, and those of you who took Bud A's "hawk-watching class" this year, may have been at one of the final sessions at which Ben & Kim gave a presentation about their banding study, with a handout of information included.

kee kee kee !


Barb Deihl
Matthews Beach Neighborhood - NE Seattle
barbdeihl at comcast.net