8 June 2026, All Peregrines All The Time

June is the month when young peregrine falcons make their first flight in southwestern Pennsylvania. It’s also when we discover new peregrine families that flew under the radar until now, as happened last week at the 62nd Street Bridge.

Here’s a news roundup of Pittsburgh’s peregrines in early June with a site summary below. We currently have six active nests.

Site List and latest activity, a regional summary. (Yellow = nest is/was active in 2026, includes one failed nest. Boldface dates are May & June 2026.)

The Pittsburgh area is on track to add 16 young peregrines to the species population (* see note at end), a total that does not include the unknown count at the 62nd Street Bridge.

Activity in the region:

Downtown Pittsburgh, 3rd Avenue:

On Thursday 4 June Lori Maggio stopped by Third Avenue to see the Downtown peregrines.

From the Smithfield St Bridge I could see at least two maybe three of them [the chicks]. The adult female was in the nest at the time and Terzo was on the beam above the nest ledge. The pictures from the bridge are not great due to the heat coming off the buildings and the bus/vehicle traffic shaking the bridge up and down.

— email from Lori Maggio, 4 June 2026

The female perched on a Lawrence Hall gargoyle.

Terzo watched from the upper airshaft beam.

The chicks appear to be about 23 days old on 4 June, in which case they hatched around 12 May and will fledge around 21 June.

It’s worth checking the Third Avenue site around June 13-14, maybe earlier, to see if they’ve come to the ledge opening.

Sewickley Bridge, Ohio River:

This successful nest has four young and two watchful parents.

On 3 June Jeff Cieslak photographed four family members. Two of the “kids” were Upstairs and Downstairs: one on a high beam, the other on a lower one. Or was this an optical illusion?

The Sewickley Bridge youngsters are due to fly soon if they haven’t already.

62nd Street Bridge, Allegheny River:

As mentioned yesterday we didn’t know there were peregrines at the 62nd Street Bridge until Matt Jacob found a pair on the bridge on June 4 & 5.

Read more about this family at: New Pair Found at 62nd Street Bridge.

Tarentum Bridge, Allegheny River:

When Dave Brooke checked on the Tarentum peregrine family on Saturday 6 June the chicks are all brown and ready to fledge.

In just four days their plumage changed a lot as seen in Dave’s 2 June video.

Westinghouse Bridge, Turtle Creek:

We didn’t know that the Westinghouse Bridge nest was successful until Dana Nesiti checked on it in late May and found two chicks. Last week he visited almost every day. His video from 2 June shows one juvenile ledge walking, falling and the flying for the first time.

He was the first sibling to fly, shown in photos at top and below.

Here are the two siblings on 4 June. The one on the left looks darker overall.

The Status Table …

… at the top is a screenshot of the table taken on 7 June 2026. Here’s the up-to-date table if you’re reading this many months later.

(*) NOTE about “adding 16 young peregrines to the population this year.” 60% of young peregrines die in their first year, many of them before they leave home. The urban setting is unforgiving when it comes to chimneys and glass. By the Spring of 2027 that number 16 will be down to 6 or 7.

7 June 2026

When Matt Jacob, co-author of City Steps of Pittsburgh, visited the 62nd Street Bridge on June 4 and 5 to take pictures for a new book about the city’s parks, playgrounds, and trails he found a surprise. A pair of peregrines was flying back and forth over the Allegheny River and stopping at the bridge.

It appears they are nesting somewhere on the bridge.

This isn’t the first time peregrines have nested at 62nd Street but they rarely choose this site. The last successful nest was discovered in early July 2019 when a parent and juvenile peregrine hung out at Tree Pittsburgh below the bridge. Fortunately the structure is beneath the deck so the young don’t fledge into traffic.

Are there chicks at the 62nd Street Bridge? We’ll have to watch and see. Etna Riverfront Park is a good vantage point.

The 62nd Street Bridge is one of three potential peregrine nesting bridges on the Allegheny River that are very rarely used. Sightings of juveniles in this area usually occur in July indicating the parents nested late, perhaps after failure at another site.

And so I wonder … is this where the peregrines from East Liberty Presbyterian steeple ended up after their nest blew away in late March?

p.s. Follow Matt Jacob’s photography on Instagram at @matt_jacob or @pghsteps.

5 June 2026

Last night we had a good turnout at Pitt Peregrine Fledge Watch from 6:30-7:30pm. We all hoped to see a young peregrine fly.

We had additional confirmation that a juvie had flown on 3 June when John Dzikiy showed me a video by Conor Tompkins, taken at 7pm Wednesday, of a juvenile peregrine flapping a lot as it flew out and back to the Cathedral of Learning.

The scene was set. All four chicks were on the nestrail — the Launch Zone — and both Ecco and Carla flew and sometimes soared together. The chicks were ready. Surely at least one youngster would fly while we watched.

But no. They sat around and waited for dinner. Sometimes one flapped a bit. One ran up and down the nestrail. But none of them got worked up enough to fly.

However, everyone got good looks at the juvenile peregrines and that’s a good thing.

Come on down to the last scheduled Fledge Watch is this evening, 5 June 6:30p-7:30p at Schenley Plaza.

After tonight I will still be watching but it will be a spur of the moment pop-up event.

You can always come down on you own and look in the sky near the Cathedral of Learning. Carla and Ecco live there year round. Their kids will leave town in July.

4 June 2026

Yesterday, 3 June, the Pitt peregrine youngsters were in and out of the nestbox … but mostly out. I walked over at 11:00am and saw three on the nestrail and Ecco high on the Fifth Avenue side staring intently at the likely location of the fourth. One had fledged, three to go.

This score was confirmed when someone at Fledge Watch remarked that she saw a peregrine in “flappy flight”(*) around the top of the building between 11:30a and noon, followed by an adult. Those are typical behaviors when a juvie flies. If only I’d looked up while I was walking home!

Fledge Watch at 4:30-5:30p was right next to a big event in the Schenley Plaza tent: AlphaLab Demo Day (AL26). Some of the participants stopped by to look at the peregrines.

We saw all four youngsters, three perched in the keyholes and one on top of the nestrail.

Here’s all four in one view.

Ecco (arrow at right) stopped by to check on the nestbox.

Adults on the nestrail are fair game for the kids to beg for food. When Ecco was on the left a juvie ran to get to him. Ecco waited until the “kid” was close and then effortlessly turned into the sky and flew away.

To see a longer version with music, click here for Charity Kheshgi’s TikTok.

By the time you read this the Fledged score will have changed. Are we at 2 Fledged and 2 To Go? 3 and 1? All 4 flown? Come on down to Fledge Watch this evening, 6:30pm to 7:30pm, to find out. Click here for event information.

p.s. (*) “Flappy flight” is the behavior of a newly flown juvenile. On their first few days of flight they are not skilled enough to soar. They flap a lot.

3 June 2026

Tuesday 2 June began with all four Pitt peregrine youngsters at the nest but their numbers fluctuated all morning as one or more left and returned. During the afternoon three left one by one. By the time Fledge Watch began at 4:30pm only Yellow was on camera. The rest were ledge walking.

These snapshots show how their day went, but only on falconcam. We have very few photos from the ground.

Fledge Watch officially ran from 4:30-5:30pm with a good turnout to watch the peregrines.

Our focus was on the nestrail where at one point was saw all three explorers.

One was perched inside the middle keyhole on the left side.

Two were at the far right of the nestrail.

And Yellow was alone at the nest.

Yellow left at 7:11pm and now the nest is empty.

Falcon Camera season is over but the youngsters haven’t left. All four will learn to fly in the next couple of days.

At this point the only way to see the young Pitt peregrines is from Schenley Plaza. Click here for the Fledge Watch 2026 schedule.

p.s. Fledge Watch will end when all four have flown.