Falcons at Central Terminal are banded
June 16, 2010
Buffalonews.com
Five peregrine falcon chicks born about three weeks ago atop the Central Terminal were a little busy when it came time this morning for their big debut.
The baby birds were gulping down breakfast — in this case some “prey items” caught by their parents.
“That’s wildlife for you,” said Connie Adams, senior wildlife biologist for the Department of Environmental Conservation.
Adams and other workers from the DEC were waiting to place leg bands on the five still-flightless chicks so they can be identified throughout their lives as they travel far from Buffalo.
The nest at the Central Terminal was established for the first time this year in a nest box placed on the building last year by the DEC.
The chicks, done with their meal, eventually acquiesced — with a little screeching and flapping — to the placement of small metal bands around their legs that will be used to identify the wild birds as they grow into adults.
The Central Terminal nest is one of seven active falcon nests throughout Western New York, Adams said, including nests in Niagara Falls, Grand Island, on the Statler Towers and at the University at Buffalo.
Falcons — an endangered species in New York State — have gained a local following this spring after the University at Buffalo activated a web camera to monitor the three chicks born atop a heating plant tower.
“The UB nest cam has made the words ‘peregrine falcon’ familiar in Western New York households,” Adams said.
–Denise Jewell Gee
