Northern Banding Trip

It started raining just north of Rush City, 12 miles from my home, and kept on raining all the way to Grand Rapids, 3 hours and 122 miles later. We drove through freshets, squalls, drizzles, and buckets of rain, with the radio forecasting yet more rain for tomorrow. I just hoped we didn’t get a thunderstorm! I still remember going up Genoa between thunderstorms in 2004. The stack was moving in the wind and the heavy weather was clearly heading our way. It is the only time I can remember feeling really frightened on a stack.

Minnesota Power again very kindly provided a couple of rooms for us at the Super 8 Motel. Bob and Rob bunked in one, while I took the other. After all that rain the rooms were a welcome sight, as was free coffee and breakfast in the morning! We stoked up and headed out.

Cohasset stack. The box is on the first catwalk.

It wasn’t raining – well, maybe drizzling a little bit – but it was very, very foggy. The Cohasset stack is large and usually easily seen from the road. This year, the only thing we could see was a corner of one of the buildings looming out of the mist. We got on to the plant grounds and back to the stack, where some current and past Minnesota Power employees met us. This year, Bob, me, Mike Chambers, and another Minnesota Power employee climbed the stack to band the two babies here. It went off without a hitch. I love this site – I enjoy climbing the stack, and the view is beautiful. Sometimes we bring the young falcons down the stack, but with a 200' ladder climb, it wasn't going to happen. Bob set up the banding supplies on top of the nest box, where they could easily be reached. He quickly and efficiently banded the two healthy young male peregrines while I held them. They were 24 and 25 days old. Although they still had a lot of white down, their juvenile feathers were coming in nicely on their wings and tail. We tried to get band numbers on the female, but were unable to do so.

Bob bands on the nestbox. Note the falcon's tail.

The guys from Minnesota Power.

The fog began to clear up while we were on the stack and burned off not long after we left. The day was so bright and sunny that both of us were surprised when Bob called the MPL Hibbard Plant in Duluth and found out they were in pea fog soup! Duluth, for those of you that aren’t familiar with it, runs down a large hill to Lake Superior, so it effectively sits in a sort of half-bowl against the lake. As we headed downhill from Proctor, the fog quickly became so thick it was hard to see and I’ll bet the temperature dropped a good 15 degrees. It was hard to find Hibbard when we couldn’t see the stack!

Minnesota Power had put up the box last fall and the falcons adopted it this spring. It is not a cammed site and we had no idea what to expect. We met with the Steve Schiller and went through the plant’s safety training before going to the nest. It is sobering to realize how dangerous a power plant can be. I really appreciate them going the extra mile to work with us on the peregrine-utility program – and I miss collecting footage from the King plant!

We were able to take a lift about 2/3 of the way to the catwalk before starting our climb. As at Cohasset, we were given fall arrest devices. These devices differ from plant to plant, but the ones I’ve used all clip on to a cable or bar that runs in the center of the ladder. If you fall, it will cause the device to catch and stop you. We clipped in and climbed up, where we were greeted by two fairly irate parents and four eggs. Bob checked to see if they had pips and we took a moment to try to read band numbers. We didn’t get them, but did confirm that the birds were banded.

After leaving Hibbard, we went to the Greysolon Building, where we were met by Ed and Miriam, former property managers and long-time supporters of our work; Julie O’Conner, from the Hawk Ridge PeregrineWatch, and her daughter Carly; Kelly Boedigheimer, an employee of the Fond-du-Luth casino and another supporter of our work; and Rob’s friend ‘Third’, whose actual name escapes me. At the last minute Jim, who lives in the building, and Michael Furtman, a photographer from Duluth, also joined us. We all headed up.

To get the babies here, we have to go over the top of the building on rope. We tie off to a window-washing rig that has a flat tire, so a bicycle pump is an absolute necessity – we have to pump up the tire before pushing the rig over by the box. We had a lot of help, and quickly got the banding ‘station’ and rig ready. Bob went over the top.

I think Bob decided he was sick of hard hats this year, because he didn’t have one on. Amy the falcon dove on him several times, finally getting his hat. She flew off with it clutched in her talons and circled around the front of the building before dropping it on a lower roof. I’ve seen some interesting stuff on these banding trips, but this was the first time I’ve ever seen a falcon steal a hat! Bob didn’t miss a beat as he put all four babies in a bucket, which we pulled up to the top of the building.

Amy the Falcon steals Bob's hat

Female peregrines are bigger than male peregrines. When banding babies, we look at size to help determine gender. However, that alone may not be enough. In this case, we had three large babies and one very small one. We think they began hatching on May 15th, although there was a big size difference between the larger and smaller falcons. They all had nice crops and white down, with the tips of a few tail and juvenile feathers just starting to show on the larger falcons. However, the small one was clearly younger, not just smaller. Bob looked at the thickness of the little falcon’s tarsus and size of its feet, and declared her a female. That left the three larger falcons.

The Little Falcon

Can You Pick the Male?

Bob pointed out that the falcons were making slightly different noises. The females make a lower raspier noise, while the males make a higher noise. I thought of the difference between crows and ravens, although they sound much more alike than that. At any rate, Bob had Rob and I band a falcon that he was positive was a female before turning to the last two. We listened to them and banded the next bird with female bands (lower voice, thicker tarsus, size of feet) before turning to the last, questionable bird. Rob looked it over, came to a decision, and asked me what I thought. Hmmmmmm. Well, the voice was higher, the tarsus was thinner, and the feet were smaller. I thought it was a male and he concurred, as did Bob. We banded the last bird with male bands and then took a female and drew blood for the University’s genetic study. I quickly returned the young birds to the nest. It was an odd feeling – last year, Duluth was the end of the year and this year, for me, it was the beginning! But what a great beginning: two babies at Cohasset, four at Greysolon, and four eggs at the new Hibbard site in Duluth Harbor. I can hardly wait to come back!