Angry Birds! Tosa Falcons Get Bands and Names

It is a myth that birds will not accept their babies back if they've been removed from the nest.

It is not a myth that birds get very, very upset if you remove their babies from the nest.

When the birds are peregrine falcons, a biologist planning to borrow and band the young will face 2 pounds of feathered fury apiece from mom and dad.

That's why when Greg Septon climbs atop tall buildings to collect babies for banding, he has two "falcon sweepers" standing by with brooms to ward off the parents.

It doesn't always help. A week ago, Septon, We Energies' resident peregrine expert and nesting program manager, took a hit from a peregrine, and some years ago he suffered a badly lacerated ear.

Nothing went amiss Tuesday morning when Septon invaded the nest box of a pair of peregrines that, for the first time, chose to take up housekeeping on top of the We Energies County Grounds Power Plant.

Septon opened the back of the box and, wearing thick leather gloves, plopped three half-grown falcon young into a pet carrier, while their parents shrieked overhead.

The downy babies, about three weeks old and weighing about a pound each, were brought downstairs for what should be – is hoped to be – the only direct contact they will ever have with humans.

Naming rights

Septon, assisted by WE environmental manager Mike Grisar, intended to afix two bands to each baby. One is a federal ID – "Which you can't read," Septon said – and the other, with a large number visible even on camera, tagging it as a We Energies offspring. The identifying numbers will be entered in a database so that biologists can keep track of nesting birds.

Septon also collects a blood sample from a vein in the falcon's wing – "It's the same vein used if you were to give blood," he said, "only it's a lot smaller." The blood sample will be entered in a University of Minnesota peregrine DNA database containing genetic records on 4,000 peregrines nationwide.

And, finally, the little falcons got named.

Paul Mosciker of Greendale got to christen Abigail. He bid on and won the rights at a fundraiser for the Schlitz Audubon Center. Had his falcon been a boy, he said, it would have been called Lucifer.

Brian Benish, a We Energies employee, was tabbed to chose a name for another, and he picked Vita, meaning "life," for a girl or Peto ("to seek") if a boy.

Vita it is. All three Tosa falcons are females.

A young girl picked for the last young lady falcon, and she chose Stella. The girl and her mother declined to have her named in the media.

Tracking a successful reintroduction program

Septon said he had a fondness for hawks and especially peregrines since he was a boy, and took up falconry as a youth, flying goshawks, red-tails and others as well as peregrines.

"I had permit No. 1 from the state of Wyoming," Septon said, "to collect a prairie falcon. I roped up seven cliffs to find the bird I wanted – a male prairie falcon that I flew for a number of years."

Peregrine falcons were never numerous in Wisconsin, Septon said, because they nested naturally only upon high cliff ledges along the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers and in Door County.

By 1964, the peregrine became extinct in Wisconsin, as it had or would in most other states around the same time. The cuprit was the calcium-robbing pesticide DDT.

The loss of peregrines seemed an unthinkable loss to Septon, and when people began to contemplate reintroducing them after DDT was banned, he got on board for Wisconsin.

"I decided it was something worth doing, and I set up a non-profit and raised half a million dollars to do it," Septon said.

Young were collected from as far away as Scotland (peregrines are a global species), the Arctic, British Columbia, the Rocky Mountains and Baja California. They were raised in captivity and released, 103 all together in Wisconsin.

Some thrived, many didn't, but enough found nest platforms and mates, and to date We Energies' program has fledged almost 200 peregrines, with 19 born this year.

"The urban sites are the mainstay," Septon said.

So much so that many urban peregrines – of a species known for prodigious travels – no longer migrate, Septon said.

"The pantry is full all year," he said. "You have mourning doves, pigeons, starlings, year-round."

Location, location, location

This is the first time all six of We Energies' power plant nest sites have been occupied by successful nesting pairs. The box on the County Grounds plant was installed in 2007, and this is the first time it has attracted peregrines.

The father of Wauwatosa's three babies is named Polyo, who was fledged from a nest box on the Port Washington power plant. He had mated before.

The mother – so far unnamed – was raised on top of a US Bank building in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and is a first-time mom.

"If they survive," Septon said, "they will return, because they had success here. They don't mate for life, but they both become tied to the location."

That tends to bring pairs back together each year, regardless of any missing romantic attachment. The record-holding female, Atlanta, reared more than 40 young over a dozen years, most of them successively with a male named Scott.

So, there's a good chance that, having succeeded in bringing up three babies in the larder of the County Grounds, Polyo and Miss Iowa will return to their box next year and for years to come.

They certainly are defensive about their Tosa rooftop condo – and not only from curious biologists, but from other, even larger, predatory birds.

"I saw them pounding a red-tail this morning," Septon said.