“It’s very exciting to know that one of our falcon’s descendants has come back and is here now,” Hannon said. In 2017 at the downtown Reading peregrine falcon nest site, Art McMorris bands the female falcon that is now at the nest site at the Rachel Carson Building in Harrisburg. A look at the bird’s leg bands confirmed her suspicions. Hannon was present at the 2017 banding in Reading and recognized the necklace markings on the new falcon that the bird’s mother had. Two days later on June 5, another female peregrine showed up, a bird that hatched and fledged from Reading in 2017. The bird was rescued and taken to Red Creek Wildlife Center in Schuylkill Haven, where she is under care, Myers said. Officials believe that the falcon dislocated its wing in a dustup with either a Canada goose or a turkey vulture and sustained soft tissue damage rendering it incapable of flight. The longtime resident Harrisburg female that was hatched on the Pennsylvania - New Jersey Turnpike bridge in 2009 was injured during the course of the fledging period this year, according to Bert Myers, the Department of Environmental Protection’s environmental education specialist who oversees the Harrisburg falcon web cam ( ) and the nest site. The Harrisburg nest site atop the Rachel Carson Building has undergone a similar turnover with another Reading peregrine playing a role. The resident female was killed when it flew into a building while defending the territory from another peregrine, and the longtime male that had inspired Hannon disappeared. ![]() The nesting failed, the first time the Reading nest did not produce young. In a nesting upheaval last year, both the male and the female Reading falcons were replaced by another pair. “People sign up for a year and never come back, or they’re hooked for life, like me,” she said. Harrisburg Falcon Watch and Rescue is an informal group of volunteers that love falcons, Hannon said. When I found out that he was nesting in Reading, where I have family connections, I was so excited and went down to see him. ![]() “And I saw him when he was a fledgling, and that night I joined the Harrisburg Falcon Watch. “That falcon was the first peregrine falcon I ever saw,” Hannon said. Hannon’s love of the peregrine was inspired by one particular male falcon that hatched in Harrisburg in 2005 and found its way to Reading in 2007, and until last year was half of the city’s nesting pair. One monitor who didn’t need any encouragement to sign up is Sue Hannon of Grantville, Dauphin County, the main force behind the Harrisburg Falcon Watch and Rescue. “We are dependent on input from the public, and in fact when peregrines were still listed we were getting a large proportion of our observations from the volunteers and the public that were sharing with us,” Barber said. Around 80 have signed up and have been contributing sightings. To help the public keep track, the game commission is employing the ArcGIS mapping app through the commission’s community hub that will allow volunteer monitors to input location data on nest sites and nesting success.Īll of the previous falcon monitors were invited to join, which amounted to hundreds of people, Barber said. ![]() I’m excited about these species for the same reasons as the public is, so I feel connected to them and share their excitement, and that’s what these species depend on.” “The continued success of peregrines like many other species is really dependent on the public’s interest and ongoing support,” Barber said, “and so while peregrines we can already argue are a great success, the only way that continues is if the public continues to support them. ![]() The game commission is turning to the public to help keep track of the species. With that new delisted status, most of the nesting sites - including Reading - will no longer be closely monitored by game commission personnel, nor will the young be examined and banded as they had been while the falcon was listed as an endangered species. Of those, at least 42, or 58%, were successful, Barber said. The peregrine had not historically nested in Berks County but has been seen annually during the fall migration at Hawk Mountain since the sanctuary’s founding in 1934.īecause of an aggressive recovery effort by the game commission and other wildlife agencies, in 2021 peregrines occupied 73 nest territories in the state with 22 pairs on cliff sites, 50 on human structures and one indeterminate. In the early part of the 20th century, there were 44 known nest sites in the state, with 43 of them on cliffs, according to the game commission. The peregrine was extirpated as a breeding bird in the state around mid-century after the widespread use of DDT caused egg failures in the nest. The success of the peregrines in Pennsylvania can be measured by the number of nesting territories.
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