The eighth breeding season of Anne, the long-time resident female peregrine falcon at UC Berkeley, proved to be her most successful: For the first time since 2017, all of her eggs hatched in the Bell Tower nest, giving birth to four fluffy chicks. bird. Three hatched on Monday and one hatched this afternoon.
“It’s really exciting,” said California Falcons ecologist Sean Peterson, who was watching the hatching on his computer in Minnesota. Year after year, Annie’s eggs usually failed to open. (Watch the fourth hatch in the California Falcons video.)
“We’ve always wondered if there was some physiological or environmental influence that caused her to lay an unfertilized egg every year, but maybe it’s just bad luck.
Good luck,” he said. “Annie and Archie have four chicks and when the chicks grow up, their wings are sure to be full.”
Today, visitors watched the hatching of Chick 22 outside the Berkeley Art Museum and Film Archive (BAMPFA), where the annual Hatching Day event was held. A group of people watched nest activity live on BAMPFA’s giant outdoor screen via Campanile webcams and asked questions of California Falcons experts.
YouTube promo “Answering all your burning questions about Annie, Archie and their new couple”
Chicks.
Meanwhile, the chicks’ dad Archie – Annie’s new companion – has received high praise from Cal Falcons experts. Petersen said Archie and Annie took turns sitting on the eggs as they hatched them, and “there were some adorable moments when he quietly talked to the chicks as they struggled to emerge from their shells.”
UC Berkeley Falcons
He added that Archie had been “a great partner to Anne”. “He was very talkative and would talk to her constantly whenever they were together.”
California Falcons member Mary Malec, who monitors raptor nests in the East Bay Regional Park District, called Archie “a keeper” and a “hands-on dad” who may soon be involved in feeding Nestling at work.
Archie is the latest in a series of high-profile male companions for Anne. He arrived at the nest in January, weeks after Anne’s former partner Lou went missing. Lew emerges in November 2022, filling the vacancy left by Alden, who has replaced Anne’s partner Grinnell since 2016.
Both Anne and Archie keep the chicks warm for the first 10 days of their life, as they are unable to regulate their own body temperature during this time.
“So we’ll often see them hiding under mom or dad,” Peterson said.Anne will
The main incubator for chicks, Archie will hunt for food for the family for about three hours
weeks. Annie would then join him in delivering meals to the chicks.
For the first three weeks, Annie will be the primary incubator for the chicks and Archie will hunt for family food. Annie would then join him in delivering meals to the chicks.
UC Berkeley Falcons
A raptor biologist will install identification bands on the four chicks in mid-May, when they are about 23 days old, at which time she will determine whether they are male or female. They take their first flight when they are about six weeks old.
Peterson said it was great to welcome new chicks to the tower again, “seeing the personalities of these chicks develop as they grow older and begin to explore the world around them. The interaction between the three siblings is very interesting.”
Marek was also delighted by the rare arrival of four chicks on the bell tower. But she said she was “pleased to see a number of chicks successfully hatch and fledge,” adding that this year “has been a very, very bad year for peregrine falcons, with bird flu raging in the Bay Area.”
Of Anne’s descendants, Sequoia is thought to have died of avian influenza in San Jose.lux
Lindsay died just after learning to fly. Zephyr was seen in Vallejo in the fall of 2023.
Larry (Lauren Sim), who lives on Alcatraz, laid four eggs this spring, and then—
Just like her mother’s – each gave birth to a healthy chick.
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Image Source : news.berkeley.edu