By Rebecca Zandbergen
Area birders are hoping Ottawa’s two peregrine falcons will produce offspring this year, increasing the population of one of Ontario’s endangered species.
This month, one of the crow-sized falcons, Connor, flew in from the south to rejoin his partner Horizon, who stayed on a ledge at a downtown hotel this winter.
It’s the fourth year the pair have nested on the ledge of the Crowne Plaza Hotel.
Bill Green, director of the Canadian Peregrine Foundation, says it will be the middle of April before Horizon lays any eggs.
Last year, the peregrine pair, which feasts mainly on pigeons, wasn’t successful in hatching any of its four eggs. Instead, the birds raised three chicks that the foundation purchased from an outside breeder.
Since 1977, the foundation has been involved in a recovery program for the falcons, releasing captive-born peregrines into the wild, tracking and banding them to collect information on their success and mortality rates.
With the falcons back in Ottawa, it gives the foundation another chance to band and track their potential offspring.
But Green says, “What you might think makes a healthy population may not be that healthy.”
Last year the foundation tracked more than 20 nesting pairs in Ontario, up from zero in 1980.
Peregrine falcons have been on the endangered species list in Ontario since 1973. Nationally, the birds were taken off the list in April of last year. Other Canadian provinces have the falcons listed as a threatened species, meaning if things get any worse they’ll be put back on the endangered species list.
“If we hadn’t done anything we wouldn’t have any left,” says Green. But he says, “I think it’s a little premature for us to say they are alive and thriving in Ontario.”
With the falcons back in Ottawa, Eve Ticknor, a member of the Ottawa Field Naturalist Club, will be coordinating a street watch for the birds and any chicks they might have.
Ticknor blames DDT, a chemical found in pesticides that is toxic to the birds, for the low numbers. The chemical has been banned in North America for decades but not in places such as Central and South America, where peregrines spend their winters.
“Pollution can wreak havoc on their reproductive systems,” she says.
And, she adds, a young falcon in London tracked by the foundation was found dead on a sidewalk with a pellet gun bullet in its head.
Shaun Thompson, an eastern Ontario ecologist for Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources, says he thinks Ontario hasn’t been able to take the birds off the endangered species list for a couple of reasons. He says Ontario’s use of contaminants in the 1970s and its lack of natural habitats are partly to blame.
In the wild, peregrines nest in cliffs and escarpments. But in Ottawa and other Ontario cities such as Toronto, London and Hamilton peregrine pairs nest on the ledges of highrises instead.
Thompson thinks recovery programs like the one in Ottawa are helping the falcon’s numbers increase.
“They’re definitely improving. We’re getting more naturally born-raised as opposed to captive-raised,” he says.
Two years ago, the ministry announced that for the first documented time since 1973, a falcon pair from southern Ontario hatched their own offspring without any human intervention.
The foundation hopes to reconnect a video camera on the peregrine’s ledge within the next couple of weeks.
Interested birders can see Connor and Horizon over the Internet or on big-screen televisions set up in a neighbouring building.
Currently, the ministry is reviewing whether peregrine falcons should be taken off the endangered species list in Ontario.