2004 was the best year ever for breeding peregrines in the greater Seattle area. There were pairs at six sites. Of those six sites, four fledged young, one failed, and one pair did not lay eggs. The successful sites were Washington Mutual (4 young), Ship Canal Bridge (4), Grain Terminal (3) and eastside (3). It was the first successful year for the Ship Canal pair (4 young) and the second for the eastside site (3 young).
The adult males at the both the Ship Canal Bridge (hatch year 2001) and our one eastside site (hatch year 2002) were the offspring of Bell and Stewart. These two males did not go far from their natal territories when they established their own territories. Both these males are mated to females from Oregon, and it is typical that females disperse further from their natal areas than males when they establish breeding territories. An adult female (hatch year 2000) found dead at her nest in the San Juan Islands in July 2004 (young taken, killed by a mammalian predator) is the only female from the Washington Mutual nest that we know reached adulthood and became a breeding bird.
