Community Corner

Peregrine Falcons At Last Nesting in Wauwatosa

At long last, endangered falcons settle in to raise young on local power plant platform, with three downy and increasingly feisty young on the nest.

For what might be the first time ever – there's no real way to know – peregrine falcons have nested, laid eggs and hatched healthy young in Wauwatosa.

We'll get to why this could be both a historical and prehistorical first in a bit, but for now, three fluffy baby falcons are perched high atop the We Energies Milwaukee County Power Plant on the County Grounds, with watchful Mom and Dad handy.

You can watch the family live on We Energies falcon-cam. They will be banded and named next week.

We Energies put up a nest box on top of the MCPP power building in 2007 and until now had no luck in attracting any peregrines.

The power plant must not have been considered prime territory by lovestruck peregrine pairs, even this year, as the rearing came a little late – Tosa's baby birds are still nestlings, while clutches of young at other plants are almost ready to fly.

But that's a good sign, mostly for the peregrines and also for Wauwatosa. If there are enough falcons returning to the area that new mating pairs are seeking out entry-level housing, it's no insult to us – our power plant just isn't quite as tall as most.

Peregrines love high places, and for years have been expanding their numbers on urban skyscrapers, the biggest of power plants, and on a few other high and mighty locations in the Milwaukee area and across Wisconsin and the Midwest.

If they are now successfully nesting on somewhat lower-altitude locations, it has to be because they like the neighborhood – which, to a bird-brain, must mean plenty to eat and little to fear.

Coming back from oblivion


The predatory birds had been extirpated from Wisconsin decades ago, beginning in the 1950s and '60s, when the pesticide DDT moved up the food chain to these top predators and interrupted the absorption and deposition of calcium for their eggshells.

Thin-shelled eggs collapsed under the weight of their own mothers or simply failed to hatch, decimating the population year by year until most of the nation was without the noble birds.

Cathy Schulze, a spokeswoman for We Energies, said Thursday that this is the first time that nesting boxes at all six sites the company has installed on its power plants have yielded a nesting pair and young.

Almost 200 peregrines have hatched at We Energies sites since the company's falcon recovery program was begun in the 1990s, Schulze said.

"The recovery program here in Wisconsin has been very successful," Schulze said, "but there is still work to be done – the peregrine falcon remains on the endangered species list in Wisconsin."

Schulze also said Thursday she was addictively watching falcon young on the Oak Creek power plant because they "should be fledging any second, so I’ve been glued to that screen!"

"Fledging" means having developed a full set of flight feathers that could allow free aviation at any moment – but wild birds don't log their ground lessons, so you never know when they'll take it upon themselves to solo.

Wauwatosa's baby falcons are still in their pure-white infant-to-toddler dress of plush down, but they are starting to stand up and get feisty when Mom or Dad brings food – usually a small bird, but sometime a pigeon feast.

The largest usually gets the most, but in a nest and year located where food is abundant, all hatchlings can survive and thrive, and usually return to the same area when they are yearlings.

Also, their parents will stay mated and typically stake out that place for coming years, meaning Wauwatosa could have peregrine falcons for the foreseeable future.

The word on the bird

The peregrine falcon is not just any old bird. It is considered superlative for several reasons.

The peregrine is known as not only the fastest bird but the fastest animal of any kind in the kingdom, on more than one count.

Peregrines can cruise in level flight at up to 80 miles per hour, making them faster even than a cheetah (70 mph) when it revs its engine.

But in a hunting dive – called the "stoop" – a peregrine can hit 200 mph, far and away from any other creature's maximum speed. Its usual prey is another bird in flight, and it is near-unerring in its aim.

The peregrine uses its propulsive speed to gain high altitude, watches with eyes the envy of NASA satellites for prey below, then stoops on its target and clocks it on the head with fisted feet, causing concussion if not death.

In some of the many cultures that have practiced falconry, or hunting with captive birds, the peregrine could be owned only by kings, so noble were they regarded.

The peregrine also lives up to its name, which has nothing to do with its speed or hunting prowess but everything to do with its migratory endurance (peregrine means "wanderer").

Peregrines have been tracked migrating up to 16,000 miles – more than half the circumference of the globe.

On top of that, peregrine parents are considered among the most fiercely protective of their young of any creatures in the world. Any animal – including many a human scientist or photographer – that approaches the nest before fledging time risks a screeching power-dive attack and some severe lacerations.

Country bird, city bird

The pesticide DDT was deemed most responsible for the loss of peregrine falcons to our region during the 1950s through the 1970s. But recent studies suggest the birds were already stressed and may have been having difficulty raising young even before then.

Peregrines must have a high place to nest with a long and wide view, and must have a clear view of even their own near surroundings – sometimes estimated at 150 to 200 feet in altitude and latitude.

For that reason, it is possible that there was never any natural formation favoring peregrines in the Wauwatosa landscape. Tall buildings in the open, such as the County Grounds power plant, are an unnatural but welcome phenomenon to the falcon.

Even with their astounding eyesight, peregrines cannot tolerate opportunistic predators on their nests that can approach undetected.

Peregrines historically – wildly – once nested only on gravelly cliff ledges. In those days, in the Midwest, that meant cliffs cut above major rivers such as the Mississippi or along lakes, such as in Door County.

But in the case of river bluffs, many of those nesting sites were kept open by wildfire. Brush that has climbed up and down those bluffs since wildfire has been  brought under human control has given raccoons and other arboreal omnivores free access to the ledges that once fledged falcons.

Power plants and other tall buildings now take the place of those ledges, and the wildest of birds from the most inaccessible of all wilderness places has now has adapted to become the most awesome of urban pest controllers – the pigeon-dealer extraordinaire, the peregrine falcon.
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Some good news for hard-core naturalists – peregrines were reported last year rearing young on Mississippi River bluffs, just like in olden days. But tall urban buildings and power plants for now remain the main nursery for this still-endangered species.


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