Falcon fledge watch at UC Berkeley
By Christina Tarr
In spring, the U.C. Berkeley campus is a veritable nursery. I walk across campus almost daily, and have regularly seen baby juncos, phoebes, crows, Brown Creepers, and Red-shouldered Hawks, not to mention skunks and raccoons. This spring, though, the most exciting family by far were the Peregrine Falcons nesting on top of the Campanile, the 307-foot bell tower in the middle of campus. The two chicks, named Fiat and Lux, fledged during the first week of July.
While peregrines have overwintered on the Campanile, as far as we know they have never nested there before this. But now that they have successfully nested there once, they will likely return in years to come.
Because I work on campus, I was lucky enough to be able to hang out intermittently with the volunteer “fledge watch” for most of the week. First, we assembled equipment, boxes, and a net, in case we had to catch a bird on the ground. We posted signs around the area, telling people what to do and whom to call if they found a bird on the ground. The watchers started each day by 7 a.m. in a little patio near the northwest corner of the plaza surrounding the Campanile, scopes trained on the tower. Around 11, when the fog burned off and the sun came out, they moved to a shaded spot near Evans Hall, directly north of the tower. As the day wore on, they moved to the west side, near South Hall, or back to the little plaza south of the library. They stayed until dark, typically wrapping up about 8:30 or 9 p.m.
Adult falcon flying from the Campanile on July 5. If you look closely, a juvenile is perched in the niche next to the righthand fleur de lis. Photo by Elizabeth Winstead.
Adult falcon on Campanile. Photo by Elizabeth Winstead.
The birds spent long periods of time doing not very much. The parents flew in and out, bringing food to the hungry and noisy chicks. They sat on the tower keeping watch over things. They liked the corners, the tops of the light stands, and the top of the cupola. The mother in particular spent a lot of time sitting on the decorative carved garland directly below the balcony level where the chicks were. The mother screamed. The chicks screamed. Occasionally, more and more often as time went on, we could see the babies poke their heads out between the decorative fleurs de lis that made up the railing around the balcony.…