Biologists tag, track threatened peregrine falcons

Charles Lindbergh and Thomas Edison were not thrilled with all the attention. Neither were their parents.

Their 15 minutes of fame grew old quickly.

Biologists from the College of William and Mary's Center for Conservation Biology visited the Dominion Virginia Possum Point Power Plant near Dumfries on Thursday morning to tag and examine two male peregrine falcon chicks born less than a month ago.

The chicks, weighing less than three pounds, were still covered with down and unable yet to fly. They were named by employees of the power plant.

The baby falcons appeared wary of the Dominion employees and media who were enthralled by them.

The humans stared at the raptors and raptors stared back.

High above one of the power plant smokestacks on the banks of the Potomac River, their parents circled their nest—about 300 feet up—screeching for their young all the while.

"The parents are pretty upset. Falcons are aggressive. They will dive down and hurt you with their talons," said Bill Bolin, manager of Dominion's biology department.

Biologist Bryan Watts from the Center for Conservation Biology can attest to that. At another nesting site he said he was about five feet from a nest on a catwalk when a falcon flew at him, knocking him over and scratching his face near his eye with its talons.

These parents, however, behaved.

Falcons can fly 60 to 70 miles an hour and up to 200 miles an hour in a dive.

Biologist Libby Mojica and a Dominion employee took an elevator up the power station smokestack to the nest to retrieve the chicks, which were placed in cardboard pet carriers and brought to the ground.

"They are the perfect age for this," Watts said. "We want them to be submissive."

In about two weeks the chicks will be flying. They will remain with their parents about 40 to 45 days before they take off on their own.

The manmade nest was filled with gravel to simulate a cliff environment, the natural nesting grounds for falcons. It was attached to a catwalk on the side of the power plant stack about 10 years ago.

"This is an attractive site with lots of prey in the area," Bolin said. Falcons prefer blue jays, morning doves and grackles, which are plentiful near the Potomac River.

The nesting falcons found the nest about two years ago.

"We try to provide habitats for all kinds of critters," Bolin said.

The population of peregrine falcons took a hit in the 1960s due to the use of DDT, or Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, as a pesticide. The raptors were listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 1970. Virginia still classifies them as threatened. The peregrine falcons were removed from the federal endangered list in 1999.

In Virginia, the Center for Conservation Biology has been the lead conservation organization working toward restoration and management of the peregrine falcons.

Working with a host of others, including Dominion, the center has spearheaded the release of more than 250 falcons in the state, constructed dozens of nesting structures, conducts annual surveys of the population and monitors the success of breeding pairs.

Since the early 1980s, Virginia's breeding population has made a slow but steady recovery.

There are about 20 pairs of nesting falcons in Virginia, including the ones at Possum Point. All known pairs nest on artificial structures. Breeding sites include seven bridges and numerous towers erected specifically for peregrines.

Regionally, there are nesting pairs on the 301 Bridge in Maryland, a couple on bridges in Washington and another pair at a Patuxent power plant in Maryland, Bolin said.

Once the Possum Point chicks were brought to the ground, Watts and Mojica put metal bands around their legs so they can be monitored.

"This will allow biologists to figure out where they go and where they are from," Bolin said. "Falcons usually follow the coast and migrate to South America in the winter."

One falcon was tracked from Richmond to the Caribbean, about 2,100 miles. "It made the trip almost overnight," he said.

In addition to banding the birds, the biologists weighed and measured them. They will soon install video cameras near the nest so the birds' behavior can be studied.

At least one of the adults also is banded. The camera will allow the biologists to read the information on the bands and learn where it came from.

After the biologists and the rest of the gathered group were done with them, the chicks were brought back up to their nest and to their anxious parents, who didn't stop circling and screeching the entire 30 minutes or so that the chicks were gone.

"In another week the nest will be covered with down as they shed it," Bolin said.

And the cute fuzzy chicks will resemble the true birds of prey that they are.

For more information, visit the Center for Conservation Biology's Web site at http://www.ccb-wm.org.

Staff writer Aileen Streng can be reached at 703-878-8010.