[Bristol-Birds] Is Bristol Motor Speedway a potential Peregrine nesting site ?
- From: "Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Bristol-birds" <bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2012 18:38:17 -0400
Peregrines at
Bristol Motor Speedway
Is this a potential nesting
site for the falcons ?
Friday, Michele Sparks and I had seen a frazzled-looking immature Peregrine
there.
Glen Eller has been messing with my mind again. No more than Michele and
I had stood in a nearby parking lot last week and talked about the fact
falcons have
been seen there a number of times, Eller sent me the following email:
Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2012 08:50:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: Glen Eller
To: Wallace Coffey
Wallace,
Good find on the Peregrine, it reminds me of several years ago when Rob Biller
and I had a Peregrine flying
around the lights during one of the Bristol race nights,
Glen Eller
That observation was 24 Aug 2001 when a Peregrine was dashing thru the air and
diving down towards the crowd gathered for the August race. It was striking at
a bird
or two. If I remember correctly, Biller called me from his cellphone to report
what he
had just seen and then discovered, while he was on the phone, that Eller was
sitting
very close and had also seen it.
Larry McDaniel had one across the road at White Top park a few years ago in
January and there have been other reports, if my memory is correct, of birds
seen
perched atop light fixtures or power poles atop the grandstands.
These reports are outside the actually nesting season which gets underway during
March or April. But this might be enough of a hint that we will start birding
the
race track stadium grounds more often. I was in there again today and it is a
very
large area. The gates are open. Only a few roads appear to be closed to
the public. No one seemed to pay any attention. Race fans go in all the time
outside
race weekends and race season.
Peregrines frequently use sites other than cliff faces and that includes
stadiums in
America and Europe. A well-known one is a photo of the falcon perched in the
grid
work of the Philadelphia Eagles Stadium in October of last year.
Some believe they like these sites because of feral pigeons which often live on
buildings
and under the stands.
Many of us don't think in terms of Bristol Motor Speedway as a really big
structure that
a Peregrine would find enough protection, space or whatever to nest. If they
nest under
bridges throughout the east and on city buildings where there is no water, then
Bristol
Motor Speedway is more adequate than most of those structures in many ways.
This facility is one of the world's largest stadiums. It is probably in the
top six or so raceways
in our country. The Bristol track is larger in seating capacity than any
college or pro football
stadium in America. It is larger than Michigan, Penn State, Ohio State,
Neyland Stadium or the
Rose Bowl. It is twice as large in seating capacity as Dallas Cowboys' new
stadium in
Arlington
It might be the largest single structure in Tennessee. It is eight (8)
stories high, has an outside measurement of nearly a mile and has more
elevators than any building in Tennessee.
Strahov Stadium in Prague of the Czech Republic and maybe a couple of others
outside North
American are larger. Probably no other former stadium, which has ever been
torn down, was
nearly as large -- anywhere.
There are actually miles of
grid work, ledges, covers,
platforms, beams and almost
anything else you could
imagine.
The stadium is probably only
used for really large crowds
in March and August of each
year. As a place where a
Peregrine could find to hide
a nest site or even just perch
or hunt pigeons inside the
massive maze, it is perfect.
What it would need inside this maze is a good substrate such as a nest box with
pebbles.
In many places around the country, Peregrine Falcons nest atop roofs of
buildings and other
such structures. Just look at all of the white area around the top of the
track structure in the
photo above and nearly a mile of rooftop with all kinds of structures available.
There may have only been one modern-day wild cliff face nesting site of the
species in
Tennessee and that being in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Others have been on man-made structures.
In the state of Pennsylvania, five of their seven nests are on bridges.
North Carolina has about a dozen territories in the mountains of the western
part of the state
with most active. They are on cliff face sites.
In Kentucky the species nests on tall manmade structures. There are about a
dozen nesting
sites in the state. Abundant prey (pigeons and starlings) coupled with high
structures at urban
areas in Kentucky provide good habitat for Peregrine Falcons. In attempt to
increase nest site availability and productivity, the Kentucky Department of
Fish and Wildlife Resources has
placed nest boxes at many locations throughout Kentucky.
In the state of Virginia, the Virginia Game Commission and Virginia Department
of Transportation
have come to learn that some of its high bridge structures closely match their
preferred nesting environment on cliff faces and in high trees. But they also
nest on ships in mothballs in coastal
Virginia. Some have nested on duck blinds and some on channel markers. A pair
nested again
this year on a ledge of a tall building in downtown Richmond.
More recently the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries has been
working to get
Peregrine nests established on wild cliff faces but that has been going slowly.
A fun thought would be that there are so very many security cameras all over
Bristol Motor
Speedway that, if a falcon nests there, all they might have to do is turn and
focus their moveable
remote cameras and show the nest life over the internet.
This is just something fun to think about but it does call for our more
top-of-mind awareness of
possibilities and the birding opportunities and potential there now and we just
drive right
past it everyday or so.
Wallace Coffey
Bristol, TN
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