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UT Austin Falcon Cam (1 Viewer)

SanAngelo

Well-known member
Peregrine Falcon "Tower Girl" gets her own webcam on the University of Texas Austin Tower.

After living the single life she appears to have found a suitor, displaying mating behavior for the first time in eight years. Her camera is focused on her newly constructed nesting box.

No current activity but the UT website has stills and clips of her checking out the box.

Here's the webcam link.

Here's the slide show of stills.

Here's the video clips checking out her new box, this links will be deleted by the school on March 30th 2018.

Here's the link to the inclusive Falcon Cam Announcements with stills and video clips.
 
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I think she laid her egg(s) today.

Last night, up till approximately 10pm Central time, she spent most of her evening standing inside the box at the right outside corner. Her eyes would occasionally blink but mostly she stood fixed, staring into the night. I checked on her throughout the day, she scrapped around in the rocks but showed no nesting posture.

Today, late morning, I found her scraping the rocks, hunched over looking at her feet. She tried out a number of sitting postures but the one she seems to like is kinda laying down.

She's flown from the box a couple times, never gone long. Once when she did so, her mate who was sitting on the roof edge, in the far right back ground, flew over to the box, looked in at the rock nest, and immediately flew off as the female returned. That whole scenario took no more than 10-15 seconds. That's the only time I've seen the male.

I think the deep design of the interior box will keep us from viewing the eggs.

From google, incubation takes about 33 days.

Here's the webcam link.
 

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It's not like I'm glued to the cam waitin' on the eggs to hatch however, I am anxious to see the male and female together. I had no luck today.

I checked in, off and on thoughout the morning.

The female sat on her eggs till about mid day when she flew off, returning a few minutes later with what looked like a Northern Mockingbird. She stood on the platform for a short while, bird in her claw, before flying off. 5 or 10 minutes later she returned and immediately sat on her eggs.

This got me thinking.....maybe after the female left, what I witnessed was the male coming to the box with food. Finding the female gone, he waited around a short while and then flew off with the dead bird? Shortly after that the female returns and goes to nesting, not knowing she missed the male.....or maybe she took his offering somewhere off camera?

Anyway, around 2pm the sun came out, warming up nicely. I check in and found her on her eggs but it appeared I caught her just before taking wing. She was gone a good 3 hours or so, returning around 5:30pm, sunning herself on the platform before hitting the nest for the evening.
 

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I checked on the cam an hour before sunrise and found the bird standing on the platform edge.

Shortly after sunrise I caught her on the platform with what appeared to be another Northern Mockingbird, the head was missing.

She stood looking around seemingly uninterested in the meal.

After about 40 minutes she appeared to be calling out, her beak wide open and her throat constricting. There's no audio on the camera so I couldn't tell for sure. After a couple seconds she coughs up a good size pellet which you can see laying in the middle of the platform.

Immediately thereafter she torn into the mockingbird. It took her 20 minutes to finish the meal; ate it all, feet, legs, breast bone....everything.

Took a minute or two cleaning her beak, feet, talons and went right back to nesting.
 

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Thanks for the great photos and reports. Here in London our pairs are maybe a fortnight or so behind yours.

I was wondering whether Austin is the southernmost US city that has breeding peregrines, and whether birds found in southerly/arid areas of the US differ much from those found elsewhere? The bird in your photos looks a little like an Iberian or Mediterranean peregrine (brookei) with that slight rufous tinge to its belly. Do you see peregrines in your city as well, or does Austin have the only urban pair in the state?
 
I was wondering....

I apologize, I don't have the answers to your question. However, now that you broached the subject I would like to know those answers as well.

I was away from the computer for over a week, been back a few days, checked in on the bird on-and-off, day and night since returning. I caught her once at the box today, and once yesterday. I believe she was on the nest at night but the camera glare and bad weather made viewing difficult.

Right before I left town I stumbled across a post on texbirds describing the plight she's been facing over the years. It was sad news, for me it made viewing the cam difficult.

texbirds doesn't allow re-posting of traffic without permission but I believe providing a link is acceptable.

Here's the link to Bruce Calder's post on the matter.

From the UT Austin cam website:

Bruce Calder (B.S. ’81) first proposed installation of the falcon nest box and nest cam in 2013. He continues to work on establishing falcon nest boxes in other major metropolitan areas of Texas.


It looks like Bruce is the go to guy to answer your questions. I don't have his email addee but I am sure if you posted your question on texbirds he would respond. If need be I could probably hunt down his addee.

Here's the info for texbirds:

Sign up page. Sign up with email addee only, they'll send you the login code.

Subscription page to receive emails of posts.

Current posts for the month of March 2018.

Archive page.

Hope this helps somewhat.

Good Luck my friend.
 
Hi SanAngelo - thanks for the texbirds links. That's a shame for the individual bird herself and for those that follow her, but of course in the species as a whole is doing well in the U.S. as a whole.

Interactions between migratory and resident peregrines, incidentally, really interest me. Saul Frank's book (City Peregrines) mentions migratory females soliciting food from resident males on their way north, and I have myself seen a resident female exhibit a lot of pair-type behaviour with what I was pretty sure was a wintering migratory male (very significantly paler). It's very possible that the male seen mating with "Tower Girl" might not yet have come into full breeding condition himself and that the eggs might be infertile for that reason. I gather most of your state's resident peregrines are in the mountains, but they are highly mobile - hopefully one of these birds will make its way to Austin and pair up with the female there.

Best regards
patudo
 
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