Great River Energy Falcons

The Great River Energy peregrine falcons are nesting on a pole-mounted nest box at GRE’s Elk River campus in Elk River, MN. When Great River Energy decided to close its Elk River facility, Brenda Geisler, a long-time Great River Energy employee and resident raptor expert, immediately started work on relocating the plant’s nest box. You can read more about that here: https://www.raptorresource.org/2020/11/24/featured-partner-great-river-energy/. GRE’s site: https://greatriverenergy.com/the-cooperative-difference/environmental-impact/peregrine-falcon-birdcam/.

General Information

The site is located next to the Mississippi river and is rich in food resources. The peregrines may or may not be present year-round, but the camera is usually off in the winter. In general, the falcons begin courtship between early and Mid-March and lay eggs between late March and mid-April. Hatch should begin in early to mid-May, fledge generally occurs 38-40 days after that, and young disperse in late August or mid-September. If one or both of the adults migrate, they leave in the late fall. Adult falcon pairs are not believed to migrate together.

Peregrine falcons do not make stick nests. Instead, they make scrape nests on ledges and debris, and feed primarily on birds that they catch in the air. To learn more about peregrine falcons in general, please follow this link to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Peregrine_Falcon/id. To catch up on videos of Great River Energy, please visit our YouTube channel.

Eyasses and Outcomes
Detailed Nest Records

 Year Mom  Dad # of young produced
2022 Breezy 31/P Brooklyn 65/M 4
2021 Breezy 31/P Brooklyn 65/M 4
2020 Breezy 31/P Brooklyn 65/M 4
2019 Breezy 31/P Brooklyn 65/M 4
2018 Breezy 31/P Brooklyn 65/M 4
2017 MaryEllen 11/X Brooklyn 65/M 2
2016 MaryEllen 11/X Brooklyn 65/M 0
2015 MaryEllen 11/X Brooklyn 65/M 4
2014 MaryEllen 11/X Sawatzke H/23 4
2013 MaryEllen 11/X Sawatzke H/23 2
2012 Unbanded Sawatzke H/23 2
2011 Dot M/56 Unknown 4
2010 Unknown Unknown 4
2009 Unknown Unknown 4
2008 Unbanded Unbanded 3
2007 30/B Unknown 3
  • In 2018, female falcon Breezy replaced MaryEllen.
  • In 2015, male Brooklyn arrived and courted MaryEllen, who accepted him as her new mate. When her previous Sawatzke arrived, she drove him away. It is not true that peregrine falcons mate for life. While many peregrine falcons stay mated, others change mates as happened here.
  • In 2011, female falcon Dot replaced the unknown female who had previously nested here. The unknown falcon had already laid a clutch of four eggs. Dot did not incubate them and they were lost.

Adults

Female Breezy 31/P and male Brooklyn 65/M are currently nesting here. Breezy is a 2015 hatch from Xcel Energy’s Allen S. King plant in Oak Park Heights, MN. Brooklyn is a 2012 hatch from Colonnade Building in Golden Valley, MN,

Peregrine falcons do not build nests out of sticks. They nest on ledges, potholes, and crevices on cliffs and buildings. This nest box is filled with pea gravel to provide a substrate that cushions and drains the eggs. Brenda Geisler of GRE contacted us about a nest box in 2006. She worked with the Raptor Resource Project and Boy Scout Daniel Sunberg to get the box built and installed. It became active in 2007 and has been productive ever since.