WaMu in transition...

We wish we had an answer for those of you who have questions about the Washington Mutual peregrines. It is obvious that something has changed, but we don’t have specifics at this time.

Winter activity downtown was consistent with what we’ve observed in the past. We did not see the birds on the nest ledge, but that is normal during the winter. As spring approached, we continued to see a pair downtown. Then, sightings dropped off abruptly in late February. We began to see more activity beginning in early March, but it didn’t appear that there was much courtship activity – at least not on the nest ledge. The birds sometimes perched on the Washington Mutual Tower, and we observed a few copulations on other buildings, but we didn’t see evidence of focus on the nest ledge. We are still seeing this same pattern, and we have no evidence of a nesting attempt on any other building.

Unfortunately, until the birds either start showing interest in the nest box or perch outside windows where someone can read bands (if either are banded) or photograph them, we will not be able to try to identify them. There are, of course, a number of different scenarios about what’s going on, but it’s all speculative at this point. We do have the camera set up on the traditional nest ledge.

We will have further updates soon, including a recap of last year (6 pairs – 4 successful!) and spring updates on some of our other pairs.

May

Downtown Seattle – Washington Mutual Tower

The unidentified adult female made a late, unsuccessful late nesting attempt on a small ledge on the 21 story IBM building and then abandoned the nest. Since then, we have seen an adult female on various perches downtown. As in past months, she sometimes perches on the nest ledge, but has never been seen at the nest box. We have had no reports of the male for several weeks. We were not able to confirm the identity of these adults, though we do know that at least one is not banded.

Ship Canal Bridge

The eggs at the Ship Canal had hatched by April 27, and three young (one male, two females) were banded on 5/18/2005. There was also a broken egg in the nest box. This was the fourth attempt for this pair and was the second time they have hatched young. They fledged four last year.

The male is hatch year 2001 from the Washington Mutual nest, and his mate (hatch year 2000) is from the Oregon side of the Columbia River. One of their young from last year, a male, was hanging out at the Ballard Bridge a few weeks ago.

West Seattle

Will this be the year that young finally fledge from this site? The site has a history of failed attempts going back to 1999, when the nest was predated (we think a Great Horned Owl was responsible). We believe that attempts since then failed because the male was attending another nest; we were not been able to confirm this because the male was not banded. The current female is the 3^rd at the site since 1999.

Right now, there are four healthy young in the nest, with both parents attending to their every need. It looks good. Keep your fingers crossed for them.

Grain Terminal

The Grain Terminal birds are still incubating, as of 5/23/2005. Neither adult is banded, but we believe that the female is the same bird as last year. It is more difficult to determine whether the male is the same, since many adult males are so similar in plumage.

Eastside

This site has been successful for the past two years. The adult female is a Portland bird (hatch year 2001) that has been around since at least spring of 2002. The adult male, a hatch year 2002 bird from the Washington Mutual nest, was confirmed at this site earlier in the spring, and it appeared that the birds might be incubating (the ledge is not visible). However, he has now been replaced by an unbanded adult. The birds were confirmed incubating on 5/8/05. No one is predicting the outcome on this one.