Since there are no eggs at the Cathedral of Learning peregrine nest our last big news came on April 24-25 when Morela spent a lot of time wailing on camera (click here for more info). Since then the falconcam has been boring for more than a week until late yesterday afternoon.
During the 6pm hour on 3 May 2020, Morela and the unbanded male challenger courted twice for extended periods of time. Unlike typical pre-nesting courtship these episodes were not intense events but each lasted more than 6 minutes. This is in stark contrast to Terzo’s history of only 15-second appearances.
The video below shows more than 8 minutes of courtship between the Morela and the unbanded male, beginning at 6:17pm on 3 May 2020.
Then the pair came back for a second round at 6:55pm, lasting 6+ minutes.
So for the moment the new guy is back.
Thank you to everyone who keeps me up-to-date on happenings at the Pitt peregrine nest. I have a busy, distracting week ahead so I look forward to your news from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh.
(snapshots and videos from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)
Morela was in the nestbox with prey around 8:33 this morning
Going on the assumption that the new guy is Dori’s new mate based on both him and Dori visiting the CoL that one day, this situation has some similarities to what was going on in Rochester a few years back when DC first arrived. DC would spend most of his time at the Times Square Building nest site with Beuty, but there was another female that had set up shop in another part of town that he also spent time with. This went on for a couple years, but the female at the second site never produced chicks and eventually she just left. Perhaps DC (and Dori’s mate) felt the other nest site was too close to their territories and were only trying to disrupt the other site and prevent it from succeeding. I know it’s kind of hard with everything going around, but I suppose we’d need someone to spend some time in a place with a good vantage point of the Downtown site to see if he is also hanging around there.
Do you think Terzo is gone for good? Would that be why Morela is wailing? I have seen her in the nest box almost daily and overnight
I don’t know if Terzo is gone because he spends so little time at the nest that we could easily miss seeing him. The entire situation is a mystery.
J, here’s another theory on the new guy’s identity: He could be one of (Downtown) Dori & Louie’s unbanded sons.
Unbanded: For many years the Downtown chicks have not been banded because the Third Avenue nest site is inaccessible.
Proximity to birthplace: Young male peregrines tend to settle closer to their birthplaces than the females. Quite a few of (Pitt matriarch) Dorothy’s sons nest in SW PA.
Dori’s interest in Pitt events: If the new guy is her son she could be interested in what’s happening.
Unbanded bird 18:06 if not earlier to 18:13 and beyond. Few chirps, mainly quiet, laid down couple of times.
I hope that Terzo is still around but I haven’t had any luck of seeing him in quite some time. Meanwhile, Morela was in the nest for hours today, some of the time softly e-chupping and other times sitting quietly as she is right now (8:00 pm). There was a second bird seen only in shadow at around 11:00 am, I think it was. The shadow was visible in the lower right of the screen. I don’t recall hearing any vocalization between them.