Today I have some good news, and some bad news. Actually the bad news isn't all that bad so I guess I can start with that. On Monday (the 12th), I went up to Hyde Park to meet my friend, Veronica, one of the people keeping track of the peregrines that hang around the University. Earlier this month Veronica told me about seeing the peregrines on a particular university building, being very defense about a gutter ledge one of the birds was lying in.

During the egg laying phase, peregrines only infrequently sit over the eggs. It isn't until the full clutch is laid that they sit tight. When you approach an eyrie during the early stages of incubation, if the male is on the eggs, he typically will immediately get off and start flying around. The female will then come in and stay close to the eggs. If the female is incubating when you approach, she usually will sit tight but vocally scold you while the male flies around.

What Veronica saw was a bird in the gutter being vocally defense and another flying by. This behavior indicated to me that the birds were possibly nesting. Unfortunately, Monday when we again visited the site, no peregrines were present. We were also unable to confirm if there had been any eggs. We spent some time out on a nearby roof but no peregrines came to check out what we were doing. All things considered, even though it would be great to have those birds nesting - the site they had chosen (if they ever had any eggs to begin with) is not an ideal site. It's not even an ok site. They were essentially using a rain gutter and as soon as we had any heavy rains, the nest would have flooded out.

After Veronica and I left the roof, we began looking around the building to see what the peregrines had been eating. While doing this we ran into another lady who watches the Hyde Park birds, Kay. The three of us found the remains of several flickers, grackles, and meadowlarks. One of the accompanying photographs to this dispatch shows 3 flicker heads left by the peregrines. Peregrines have a tendency to leave behind the head of their prey. This gives scientists the opportunity to study what the peregrines are feeding on. In a 1993 study on the diet of Midwestern peregrines, the flicker was 2nd most common prey species.

So where is the good news about the Hyde Park birds? While we were walking around the building, we spotted an adult on a nearby tower. So the peregrines are still in the neighborhood. We just have to figure out if (and where) they might try to nest again.

The real good news has to do with where I went on Tuesday. I had a call last fall from some building inspectors that thought they had peregrines on a building they were looking at on the West side. I received an email with a photograph of one of the birds and sure enough, it was a peregrine. At that time of the year there is always the possibility that it was a migrant. So you keep it in the back of your mind and check it out the following spring. So that's what I did on Tuesday - head out to Lawndale to look for birds.

After around 20 minutes, just when I was ready to give up, an adult peregrine flew in with a bird and proceeded to spend the next 15 minutes eating. He/She was too far away for me to get an id, but I can tell you he had a black over green band. When he was done, he took off and I wasn't able to follow where he went. So what's next? More time in the field trying to get an idea if there is a second bird present and if & where they might be nesting.

Reports in from Uptown & Waukegan. Matt confirmed 3 eggs at Waukegan and the Uptown birds appear to be incubating. We'll let you know more after we head to a few more sites.