Adventures In The Northeast: Searching for Peregrines and Shots of Superior

First off, what a great way to start a Monday morning, eh?

So if you don't know the story of peregrine falcons, you should look it up. Very short version is that peregrine falcon populations plummeted due to DDT. They were one of the first species (along with bald eagles) to be placed on the endangered species list in 1973. Captive breeding became a large part of reintroducing peregrines to the wild. And a lot has been done on the North Shore because the peregrines love to nest on the cliffs of Superior. Wouldn't you if you were them?

The population has been very well monitored since then (bands and blood samples). On Monday we went looking for a nest at Pallisade Head, a place where they commonly nest. Basically that consisted of scanning cliffs with binoculars hoping to see a female peregrine nest sitting on eggs.

We assumed precarious positions to look and found one! We saw a but sticking out of a crevice in the cliffs. We set up a spotting scope and looked closely.

I was among the first few that hiked around to look straight down on the momma...and we found out it was actually just a Candadian Goose.

Look closely for a brownish butt.

So we continued the search.

And a few minutes further along the cliffs we found the remains of a song bird that had clearly been a delicious meal for a peregrine falcon. So we looked harder...

And we saw her! Look between the cedar tree and the cliff, and she is looking right at the camera. She's hard to see but she's there. We believe she was sitting tight to protect her eggs instead of flying around screaming at us.