[va-richmond-general] trying again, sorry
- From: <k-kreutzer@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Va-Richmond-General@Freelists. Org" <va-richmond-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2004 07:45:52 -0400
I'm sorry for earlier email - here is link for those who cannot get photos
via email- and story on Norfolk Peregrine falcons.
Kathy Kreutzer, Chesterfield
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=71687&ran=147061
Young falcon rescued from road after fall from nest
By SCOTT HARPER, The Virginian-Pilot
© June 15, 2004
Last updated: 12:47 PM
THE RESCUE: After stopping traffic on Waterside Drive, Shawn Padgett
carefully approaches a month-old peregrine falcon that crash-landed on the
busy road. It leapt from its nest while Padgett was trying to attach ID
bands to the rare birds. bill tiernan photos / the virginian-pilot
NORFOLK ? Shawn Padgett has tracked peregrine falcons across Virginia since
1989 . He has been bloodied by talons, attacked by anxious parents, even
rescued a few babies fallen from their nests. But he never has faced what
happened Monday.
Hanging below the Berkley Bridge between Norfolk and Portsmouth, Padgett was
attaching ID bands to the feet of two newborn falcons when one, a
brown-speckled male, spooked and attempted to escape by taking its first
flight.
It didn?t go well.
The month-old raptor landed in a heap on Waterside Drive in downtown
Norfolk, just missing a car speeding onto Interstate 264 East . Dazed and
confused, the falcon stumbled along the busy road?s edge as Padgett sprinted
into action.
He jumped into his car parked on the bridge, sped down an exit ramp to
Waterside Drive, stopped traffic briefly and gingerly approached the stunned
falcon .
Padgett scooped up the bird with his bare hands, then drove it back to the
bridge, one hand on the wheel, one around the ball of feathers and fuzz
squirming in his lap.
?My heart was pounding like you wouldn?t believe,? Padgett said. ?I knew if
he started to walk into the road, he was dead.?
Ironically, the bird?s father suffered a similar crash-landing during its
inaugural flight. Padgett should know; he witnessed it.
It was 1994 and the father, then a down-covered fledgling, spiraled to the
pavement below the James River Bridge between Newport News and Isle of Wight
County. After traffic was stopped that day, the bird was returned to its
nest, too.
?Like father, like son, I guess,? said Padgett, a raptor expert with the
Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William and Mary.
Monday, of course, was not supposed to go like this. It was supposed to be a
time to measure and monitor the two chicks ? one male, one female ? born to
Norfolk?s lone pair of peregrine falcons, which continue to delight downtown
workers by swooping and diving and perching on tall buildings along Norfolk?
s waterfront skyline.
This is no ordinary pair, either.
The female is new to the city this year, having wandered down the Atlantic
coast from a cliff in Vermont ; Padgett could tell this by the bands on her
feet.
The male has lived and bred in an artificial nest below the Berkley Bridge
for several years now, its previous mate being the oldest known peregrine in
Virginia history.
THE RETURN: Padgett drives the dazed and squirming falcon chick back to its
nest under the Berkley Bridge. Bill Tiernan / The Virginian-Pilot
But last July, the 17-year-old matriarch clipped a wire or power line over
the Elizabeth River and died two weeks later. Experts worried that the
suddenly single male might just pack up and leave town. Instead, he got
busy.
?My guess is that he was looking hard for a mate and she just got sucked
into his world as she was migrating south, probably just looking for food or
something,? Padgett said of their courtship.
The female is only 13 months old but is larger than her beau.
Her wings are still brown with youth, not having yet turned the blue-gray
tint of adulthood.
Peregrines are nature?s dive-bombers. They reach air speeds of 200 mph while
hunting down prey, mostly pigeons and smaller birds. Their talons are like
needles, their beaks like razors.
Like bald eagles and other raptors, peregrines were nearly wiped out in the
early 1970s by DDT , a pesticide that made their eggs wafer-thin and nearly
worthless. With DDT banned, the birds no longer are protected by the federal
Endangered Species Act but still draw safeguards under state law because of
their still-fragile status.
Virginia has about 20 nesting pairs, which last year hatched 39 chicks, a
record.
To stabilize and expand the population, state wildlife experts want to move
more baby falcons to the Shenandoah mountains, where they can perch on
cliffs and not worry about crashing into buildings or roadways like
Waterside Drive.
This year, though, the two chicks born in Norfolk will stay in Norfolk.
Their parents will likely chase them from their nest by mid-July, however,
and they will have to decide whether to stick around or migrate elsewhere.
Padgett is just glad they will be around to make that choice.
Reach Scott Harper at 446-2340 or scott.harper@ pilotonline.com.
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