20 April 2026

Peregrine falcons are incubating at many sites in Southwestern Pennsylvania and eggs have already hatched at Tarentum Bridge. Here’s a summary of the latest news.

Map legend: Dark blue=bridge sites, Red=building sites, Pale blue=no success in 2025

Site List and latest activity. Yellow=fledglings last year. Scroll to see entire spreadsheet

Activity in the region:

Cathedral of Learning, Univ of Pittsburgh:

Carla and Ecco’s eggs are due to hatch some time soon between the 24th and 28th of April. Watch the National Aviary falconcam and you may be the first to see it!

East Liberty Presbyterian Church steeple:

Alas! On 8 April Ed Moore confirmed what peregrine monitor Adam Knoerzer had suspected. The nest has failed because it blew away in a storm in late March. Read all about it here: East Liberty Peregrines’ Nest is Gone

Downtown Pittsburgh, 3rd Avenue:

On 3 April Jeff Cieslak confirmed that this year’s pair at the Third Avenue Downtown nest is the same as last year: Terzo and the dark female.

He also confirmed they are incubating!

Eckert Street / BRUNOT ISLAND / McKees Rocks Bridge, Ohio River:

On 2 April Jeff confirmed a courting pair of peregrines at the Brunot Island RR Bridge. His photos show that the male is the same one he spotted at the West End Bridge over the winter. This male has the same distinctive “backwards” bands (silver on the wrong leg).

The pair did a prey exchange and the chocolate brown female flew away with the meal. Is she immature or could she be another, darker version of the Downtown female?

Sewickley Bridge, Ohio River:

The Sewickley Bridge pair is incubating so while one is in the nest the other is off duty. Jeff photographed both of them on 3 April.

Tarentum Bridge, Allegheny River:

Happy news at Tarentum Bridge!

On 16 April 2026: She appears to be feeding hatchlings. The timing is right. I estimated tomorrow the 17th as a possible hatch day.

— Facebook update from Dave Brooke 16 April 2026

Westinghouse Bridge, Turtle Creek, Monongahela Watershed: No news since 10 March 2026

After so many years with no reports from the I-70 Speers/Belle Vernon Bridge, a peregrine was seen there last Sunday. Nicklas Hostetter must have been driving by when he saw it: https://ebird.org/checklist/S324182139.

A Big Thanks to Jeff Cieslak who has monitored the majority of these sites(!) and for allowing me to use his photos.

12 April 2026

Adam Knoerzer monitoring every day. On 9 March he watched them fly around their territory and on 19 March he saw them bowing at the nest.

But on 2 April Adam wrote, “Dead quiet all week at East Liberty. Haven’t seen a single falcon the three times I’ve dropped by this week between 4-6pm.” It also looked like the sticks were gone.

Peregrine absence in those first days of April is not normal. In prior years the female laid eggs during that time. We wondered what was happening so Adam asked Ed Moore at East Liberty Presbyterian Church if he could check on the nest area.

On 8 April Ed sent the photo at right below and wrote, “Hi, Adam. Nothing up there. This pic is the ledge they were on last year. I checked all four corners and nothing.”

Two photos below show Before and After. At left is the nest with young in 2025. Notice the substrate that’s almost like mulch. At right is the same area now, circled in blue. It is completely empty.

What happened? My guess is the Wind!

The peregrines were using the remnants of a former red-tailed hawks’ nest which was built on the sloped steeple and held up by big sticks rimming the outside. The nest was located on the northeast corner which provided the best protection from Pittsburgh’s prevailing southwest winds as well as strong west winds.

In this Google satellite screenshot the steeple has a yellow arrow pointing to the nest location and green arrows for west winds. Unfortunately the nest was not protected from strong north winds, turquoise arrows below.

March was a stormy month with at least two storms that took down trees that blocked the roads. Statistics from one of those storms shows how bad the wind was.

On the night of 31 March a thunderstorm began with strong west winds at 43mph gusting to 58mph at 11:45pm. Five minutes later the wind had switched to the north gusting to 52 mph for another five minutes. The north wind is certainly a threat to the nest … if it was still there by that point.

Late in March or early April the East Liberty peregrines became homeless and had to find a new nest site because the female was ready to lay eggs. They could see a prime nest site not many miles away — the Cathedral of Learning — but it was already occupied. What to do? Harass the current residents to make them leave.

Apparently that harassment is in progress but it isn’t working yet. Over the past two weeks I’ve seen Carla and Ecco both step away from the eggs for a few moments to check the sky. Sometimes the parent on the eggs leaves the nest and the other one arrives. At one point when it was quite warm they were both gone for about an hour.

For Carla and Ecco retaining the nest site is more important than anything and they will put their all into it. Ideally the former East Liberty peregrines will find a nearby bridge to their liking.

25 March 2026

Carla and Ecco now have four eggs but we wouldn’t have known it until sharp-eyed observer Scott Hannan captured a screenshot just before 7am when Carla and Ecco did a nest exchange. Ecco is in this photo, getting ready to incubate.

It took me a while to find the moment when Carla laid the egg. From the overnight archives she laid it at 1:20am. It’s under her tail in this screenshot.

Here’s the video at the moment of laying and a couple of minutes thereafter.

After laying the egg, Carla incubated nonstop until Ecco came to relieve her at 6:58am. Here’s what Scott saw this morning.

It is likely that this fourth egg is Carla’s last for the clutch. She and Ecco will be incubating until hatch date in late April.

Watch The Big Sit at the Pitt peregrines’ nest on the National Aviary falconcam at the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning.