FreeLists / bristol-birds / [Bristol-Birds] Peregrine Falcons for Southwest Virginia

["Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>]

More Peregrine Falcons are arriving in Southwest Virginia this week as wildlife 
researchers and managers continue to try and restore the species to its 
traditional breeding range in the Southern Appalachian Mountains.

The latest effort is focused in Dickenson County at the Breaks Interstate State 
Park along the Virginia-Kentucky border in one of the most wild and beautiful 
places in the east.  This is a good site because it is believed that peregrines 
need tall and dominant rock cliffs with no vegetation cover and water nearby 
such as a river.

As early as 1985 and until 1990 the Virginia Department of Game and Inland 
Fisheries made significant efforts to introduce Peregrines in Southwest 
Virginia.  Now, more than 20 years after the first releases of Peregrine in 
Southwest Virginia, we still know very little about the success of this program 
and the status of the breeding population.  Our best guess is that it has 
failed and the best surveys and research indicates there are no breeding birds 
in the region.  But the effort is not over !

In the last few days, biologists have removed young Peregrines from a nest on 
an abandoned junk ship anchored in the James River not far from Newport News.  
The Cape Mendocino is one of 40 such junked ships and, is helping to restore 
peregrine in Virginia. 
A young falcon pair has successfully mated for the second straight year aboard 
the Mendocino, in a sheltered little platform just off the cargo ship's 
elevator shaft, according to a story published by the Associated Press. 

A team of curious scientists descended on the unusual nest Wednesday to check 
on the birds and to complete the mission. 

Biologists placed each of three baby peregrines into a cardboard carrying case, 
Wednesday, then handed the cases to another scientist waiting above the 
elevator shaft. Meanwhile, overhead the parents circled and squawked. Without 
their parents, the youngsters were driven Wednesday to a new, manmade nest site 
at Breaks Interstate Park.


The Breaks Interstate Park area includes a gorge formed by Russell Fork at the 
northeastern end of Pine Mountain. The gorge has extensive cliff formations 
including a central pinnacle which was a historic nesting site for Peregrine 
Falcons. Similar to the New River Gorge this site has extensive wall cliffs on 
both sides of the main gorge. These formations have horizontal stratification 
and many crevices and overhangs for nesting. The main cliff is part of the 
state park with overlooks and trails along the ridge. However, the height and 
situation of this cliff suggests that it may accommodate both nesting birds and 
human use. This site is isolated from other concentrations of cliffs.  Within 
the historic mountain range of the Southern Appalachians peregrines may nest on 
bridges or buildings, this has never been documented and the population is 
expected to require cliff faces for breeding.
The majestic Peregrine Falcons, which are the fastest animals on the planet, 
reaching aerial speeds of more than 200 mph, were nearly wiped out east of the 
Mississippi River in the 1970s by the lethal insecticide DDT. 

They have slowly started to recover -- but not in the mountains of Virginia. 
Instead, about 18 falcon pairs can be found in coastal Virginia, including 
nests in Norfolk, Suffolk and Richmond and on the lower Eastern Shore. 

The birds had never lived on the coast before until scientists artificially 
introduced them there, on bridges and atop platforms, as an experiment. 

"Turns out they established themselves better on the coast than in the 
mountains," said Mitchell Byrd, professor emeritus at the College of William 
and Mary, and one of the state's most renowned bird experts. 

Byrd guessed that access to ample foodstuffs -- fish, small game and other 
birds -- was likely the explanation for the coastal attraction, though "we 
still don't fully understand all this. It's an enigma." 

Byrd, who has studied birds and taught about them for more than 50 years, 
accompanied the scientific team Wednesday. He scaled ladders, jumped between 
ships and climbed through holes to reach the ghost fleet nest. 

While birding with Mitchell Byrd in Quarry Bog in Shady Valley, TN a few years 
ago,  he told me of plans to begin introducing peregrines from the coastal 
areas of Virginia into the mountains of the western part of the state, 
including Southwest Virginia.  He felt that since birds released in Southwest 
Virginia during earlier efforts were from birds of the Cornell University 
program of Tom Cade,  there might be some reason to believe that birds which 
were already from successful breeding in Virginia might work well in the 
mountain.  His proposal was to get the birds from the coastal nesting sites and 
hack them out here.

Ken Hale of Bristol Tennessee, one of my fellow bird banders in the late 1970's 
and early 1980's had been involved in the first release of Peregrine Falcons in 
Southwest Virginia while  working for the Virginia Game Commission as a 
wildlife area manager at Clinch Mountain Wildlife Management Area near 
Saltville.  Working with his crews, he used heavy equipment to drag materials 
up the mountain and construct the tower where the birds would be "hacked" by 
getting them acclimated to their environment and feeding them artificially.

Since Ken is still a birder and subscribed to Bristol Birds Net,  I hope he 
finds my recollections and accounts accurate.
This hack site was located on the massive management area spanning portions of 
Russell, Smyth, Tazewell and Washington counties. Ken's crew erected this tower 
just prior to the first and only year of use for this site in 1985.  It 
overlooked a long, marshy bowl known as Panther Lick, northwest of Saltville.

Eventually 6 birds were released and 3 fledged.  Unfortunately, the Clinch 
Mountain site was plagued with Great Horned Owl problems, which were believed 
to have lead to the premature disappearance of three of the six young falcons.  
The owls had been so much of a problem that the site was never used again, 
despite the fact it was near an historical nest location.

This site was one of two that began the hacking program in Southwest Virginia.  
The other release that year was north of Grayson Highlands State Park on the 
Mount Rogers Recreation Area of the Jefferson National Forest.  The hack box 
was situated on the tallest of three large outcroppings approximately one half 
kilometer apart oriented north-south along the crest of a rocky, pastured ridge 
known as Wilburn Ridge. All three of these rock outcroppings exceeded 1585 
meters in elevation and are located less than 3 km southeast of the summit of 
Mt. Rogers (Virginia's highest point at 1609 m.). Rocky pasture, dense 
rhododendron thickets, and spruce-fir forest made up the surrounding habitat.  
This site was used with good success for the first two years of the mountain 
reintroduction effort beginning in 1985.  

In 1988 five Peregrines were released at Mount Rogers and four fledged.   In 
1989 six released and four fledged.  The 1990 effort had eight released and 
five fledged.

Following the captive release program there have been several attempts to 
conduct targeted surveys for breeding peregrines. Among others these include 
aerial surveys of Southwestern Virginia (John Baker, unpublished memo) and 
other historic sites (Mitchell Byrd, unpublished data) during the early 1990s, 
ground monitoring of Shenandoah National Park during the late 1980s and early 
1990s (Craig Watson, unpublished reports), and continuing in the late 1990s and 
2000s (Gubler, pers. Comm.), aerial surveys of many sites across Western 
Virginia in 2003 (Rick Reynolds 2004). A systematic survey of available cliff 
sites was needed to address the question of whether there are unknown and good 
sites in the region.

Dr. Bryan Watts published An investigation of cliffs and cliff-nesting birds in 
the southern Appalachians with an emphasis on the Peregrine Falcon. Center for 
Conservation Biology Technical Report Series, College of William and Mary, 
Williamsburg, VA. in 2006.  Among other findings he revealed about nine 
excellent sites in Breaks Interstate Park with about half of them with good to 
outstanding access.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that Breaks Interstate Park and this new concept 
by Dr. Mitchell Byrd will be just "what the doctor ordered" for Peregrine 
restoration in Southwest Virginia.

Let's go birding......

Wallace Coffey
Bristol, TN