![]() ![]() Although things are now looking up, the fate of falcons was once uncertain. ![]() They put identification bands on the young birds, which in falcon lore are called eyases. “Without our partners, the nest sites would not be available.” Working Among the AeriesĭeBold’s work with peregrines follows a long line of experts like Meshach and MDC biologists who walked or crawled in high places to monitor falcon nests, called aeries. “The only reason we can do this is our partnerships,” DeBold said. In the past five years, biologists have banded 170 young falcons hatched in those nests, 91 birds in Kansas City and 79 in St. Today, several nest boxes are atop tall buildings or on smokestacks, and falcon pairs use them. “They were hoping the hacked falcons would imprint on the site and come back and nest, and that’s what they did,” DeBold said. The roof originally covered a restaurant that’s now converted into an apartment for Knight, the building’s part owner. In 1997, a peregrine pair successfully nested on a protruding roof near the top of the skyscraper. Louis, we got a nesting pair and one chick, and we banded it,” Meshach said.Īlso, in 1991, MDC initiated its peregrine recovery project by hacking young birds atop the Commerce Tower in Kansas City. “In 1991, on the Southwestern Bell building in downtown St. Louis area under the leadership of the nonprofit’s founder, the late Walter Crawford. WBS staff hacked young falcons at eight sites in the St. “I was the hack site attendant, watching and waiting and taking notes.” Hacking young birds, watching, and waiting continued for six years. “I was the person that got to be there every day,” said Meshach, who is now WBS deputy director. Louis, a place now called the Point 400 building. Sanctuary staff placed young peregrines in hacking boxes - staff-built nests where the hawks are cared for and observed - on the Pet Inc. In 1985, the year Missouri’s recovery efforts began, Jeff Meshach was an intern at the nonprofit Raptor Rehabilitation and Propagation Project, which is now the World Bird Sanctuary (WBS) in Valley Park. Peregrine restoration efforts began in upper Midwestern states in the late 1970s and continue today with programs coordinated by state, federal, and private wildlife entities. Although biologists saw no nests, researchers continue to investigate whether conservation efforts help falcons return to wild natural nest sites on high river bluffs. They scanned the rocky bluffs for peregrine nests, falcons flying to defend a nest territory, or the whitewash from droppings left near a nest. History’s clues prompted DeBold and helpers to cruise the lower Missouri River during last spring’s nesting season. German Prince Maximilian of Wied, however, did note a peregrine falcon nest on a Missouri River bluff in northwest Missouri’s Atchison County in 1833, and famed ornithologist John James Audubon also observed a pair of peregrine falcons near the river south of St. Most of Widmann’s reports mentioned falcons nesting on rocky bluffs along the lower Missouri River or the Mississippi River. Louis birder and author Otto Widmann cited nesting falcon reports in his 1907 publication, A Preliminary Catalog of the Birds of Missouri. “They can turn on a dime and ascend or descend in an instant.” History’s HintsĪlthough Missouri’s topography is not rich with the rocky cliffs that serve as the peregrine’s natural nesting preference, the falcons do have a nesting history in our state. “I admire their gracefulness in flight,” DeBold said. “We’re bringing an endangered species back, and we’re also using the falcons as a control tool in locations where there happens to be a nuisance pigeon problem,” said Joe DeBold, MDC urban wildlife biologist and falcon recovery leader. Power plant and industrial smokestacks also host nest boxes for a raptor that reduces nuisance birds. For decades, businesses have allowed biologists to tend falcon nest boxes on skyscraper ledges or roofs. This urban falcon show owes its success to a partnership between businesses, building owners, and conservation professionals. I lean on the rail and drink coffee and watch them.” ![]() “They swoop up and down off our living room roof. “I’m basically roommates with the falcons,” said Michael Knight, whose apartment roof near the top of the 30-story Commerce Tower in downtown Kansas City also serves as a nest box site for MDC’s falcon recovery effort. People gazing out from apartment and office windows in city skyscrapers can watch peregrines flying among the tall buildings, hunting food for their young, huddled in nests on windswept ledges and rooftops. Cliffs and ledges are the falcon’s natural haunts, places befitting an aerodynamic raptor capable of snatching other birds in flight by diving at speeds well over 200 mph. A dynamic bird once close to perishing from Missouri - the peregrine falcon - is back, thanks to people nurturing their nesting habits in high-rise realms.
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