Pale Male, arguably the most famous wild bird in the world, lives in and just across the street from Central Park. The Red-tailed Hawk has made its nest there since 1991. Central Park holds the dubious distinction of being the European starling’s launch pad. Fans of Shakespeare released the bird into the park in the 1890s as part of a plan to introduce to the New World all of the Old World species mentioned in the Bard’s plays. Within 60 years, the bird had reached the shores of the Pacific. On the other end of the spectrum, the number of Peregrine falcon breeding pairs fell to a low of 263 in North America in the 1970s before consentrated recovery efforts helped the species to reach its current level of more than 2,500. It is estimated that more than 100 million birds die annually from causes related to human activities mostly from collisions with windows and cats. These tragic events are the focus of bird conservation organizations and rightly so–we can all do something to prevent them. But lost in the numbers, the legislation and public awareness programs is a fundamental fact of life–all living things eventually die. This week three Peregrine Falcon chicks hatched by the breeding pair located in downtown SLC died. Don’t know what the cause is. The Utah DWR reports:
“Disaster strikes. Sadly, the first two eyases to hatch expired on the morning of May 21 and the third eyas died on May 23. Utah Division of Wildlife Resources biologists are uncertain why they died, but a major swing in temperature may have been a factor. (The temperature plummeted from 93° F during the afternoon of May 20 to about 45° F by mid-morning on May 21.) In addition, the fourth egg appeared to have a hole in it. The dead eyases and the egg were discarded by the adults.
We have retrieved one of the dead eyases and some shell fragments. We will look for additional remains below the box on the 26th and 27th, and will try to determine a more specific cause of death. We will report our findings on this page when we have more information. The adults are unlikely to re-nest this year.”
