The species has managed to bounce back after several decades of conservation efforts and a federal ban on DDT. It meant the mother birds could not sit on their eggs without crushing them, according to Doug Bell, wildlife program manager at the East Bay Regional Park District.īy 1973, there were only five peregrine falcon nesting sites in California, Bell said. The insecticide made its way into the food chain and caused eggshells to become frail and brittle. Peregrine falcon populations sharply declined from the 1950s through the ’70s with the liberal use of the pesticide DDT, according to ornithologists who study the species. Hatch Day is a party for the community that has followed the birds over the years, but it’s is also another chapter in a remarkable turnaround for a species that was once on the brink of extinction. There are no jars of mashed bananas in a falcon’s nest. Of course, he noted, part of that is preparing hearty meals of dead birds and other prey for the young chicks. So, people really kind of resonate with that,” Peterson said. “They’re very good parents they care for their chicks exceptionally well. The two often squawk at each other as they take turns sitting on the eggs.Īgain, these are merely birds doing their thing, Peterson said, but he can understand how the falcons remind their fans of parents taking care of their children. And although Annie’s latest mate is a few years younger, he seems eager to be a parent, Peterson said. “But we don’t know what happened to him.”Įventually, Lou arrived. “It was just a successful mess,” Peterson said. But after he helped save the eggs in the nest, Alden mysteriously disappeared in November 2022. The online fandom dubbed the new male Alden. In the last year, all that changed.Īnnie was then alone with her clutch of eggs, but within several hours of Grinnell’s death, another male swooped in and took his place, Peterson said. Nesting in UC Berkeley’s bell tower, peregrine falcons Annie and Grinnell always seemed to soar above the world of human drama. Olaf College in Minnesota.Ĭalifornia The avian soap opera unfolding atop this Berkeley bell tower has humans riveted Grinnell eventually recovered and returned to the nest but was found dead in May 2022 not too far from campus, according to Sean Peterson, a Cal Falcons supporter who is an associate professor at St. “She’s doing what is best for her survival and for the survival of the next generation of peregrines.” “It’s not that Annie is being unfaithful in any way to Grinnell,” Malec said. Fans chided Annie for going off with some other male. The other falcon could have been one of the falcons who attacked Grinnell, experts said at the time. ![]() Grinnell was taken to a wildlife rehabilitation hospital and while he recuperated, Annie was seen with another male partner. It was very dramatic for the online fan and scientists when Grinnell was found wounded near a tennis club a few miles from his nest in October 2021.Įxperts suspected another falcon had attacked him. The falcon pair were named Annie and Grinnell, and they managed to fledge multiple chicks over the years, experts said. ![]() The Cal Falcons group managed to create a safe site for the falcons to nest. Davison, 109 E.In late 2016, two peregrine falcons were spotted on the Berkeley campus, and in the following months a makeshift nest was found on top of a sandbag on the clock tower.
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