Yellow Girl Demands A Handout

Yellow Girl looking for a handout, 2 July 2022 (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)

UPDATE 7 July 2022: Both young peregrines have been screeching. Silver Girl screamed all day on 6 July.

3 July 2022

By late June two of this year’s juvenile Pitt peregrines remained in Oakland. Sometimes they waited for their father Ecco to bring food. Sometimes they left campus to go hunting. Eventually I saw only the adult peregrines at the Cathedral of Learning.

Then on 30 June something changed. Michelle Kienholz saw and heard a noisy juvenile begging loudly. Yesterday morning my husband heard lots of peregrine begging from St. Paul’s Cathedral steeple.

Cathedral of Learning in the distance beyond St. Paul’s Cathedral steeples (photo by Kate St. John)

By 4:30pm the falconcam showed that Yellow Girl had come home for a handout and Ecco was having none of it.

Here’s an edited sequence of events. I have spared you 8 minutes of screeching.

Ecco is letting Yellow Girl know that it’s time to fend for herself.

(peregrine photo and video from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh; St. Paul’s steeple and Cathedral of Learning photo by Kate St. John)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *