A falcon mama and her new partner in Montreal have gripped the attention of bird lovers and other curious onlookers.
Eve and M., as the birds are known, made headlines in April after Eve laid four eggs. The first egg appeared on April 16, and there were four a week later on April 23.
This is the first brood for the expectant parents, with M. having replaced a bird called Miro as Eve’s partner.
The pair live in a nesting box perched atop a tower at the Université de Montréal, in front of the- Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery.
The birds even have their own YouTube channel at FauconsUdeM, with a 24-7 livestream chronicling the peregrine falcons’ daily comings and goings.
“Right now, they’re just incubating the eggs,” said Eve Belisle, a research professional in the chemical engineering department at Polytechnique, during an interview on Wednesday. The names are not a coincidence – peregrine mama Eve was named in honour of Belisle.
Belisle said while the birds take turns incubating, generally the female will take the overnight shift.
“Typically in the morning the male will come around, you know, five or six in the morning with a gift– with breakfast. And then he takes her place on the eggs.”
While it’s a shared responsibility, Eve rules the roost.
“In peregrine falcons, the female is bigger. She’s about a third bigger than the male, so she’s the boss. She decides everything.”
Belisle became involved with the peregrines in 2008 after she spotted some flying around the university. She then got permission from the school to install a nesting box on campus. The box is typically filled with small pebbles, so the birds can build a scrape and avoid having the eggs roll out.
Since then, Belisle and other volunteers have been running a Facebook group, a webpage and the YouTube channel that includes a very active and informative live chat.
In recent days, hundreds of people at a time have flocked to the livestream in the hopes of witnessing the arrival of the first hatchling.
On Thursday, a first little chip was noticed on one of the eggs and by Friday afternoon a larger crack was creating a lot of buzz.
“Between the first little hole in the egg and then the actual baby coming out, it could take two days, even a little more sometimes,” Belisle said.
According to David Bird, an emeritus professor of wildlife biology at McGill University, people are right to be excited.
“It’s not every day that you get to see some baby peregrine falcons hatch out of eggs or any birds hatch out of eggs for that matter,” he said.
Species of special concern
In the 1970s, the peregrine falcon was on the endangered species list.
While the population has bounced back, the peregrine isn’t out of the woods yet – it remains a species of special concern.
“I think that the reason they’re still on the list under special concern is that there could be some kind of chemical out there lurking that got them in trouble in the first place, like DDT,” Bird said.
DDT, an insecticide, was used to prevent the spread of disease and to protect crops. It was banned in Canada in 1985.
The chemical limited the peregrine falcon’s ability to successfully reproduce by accumulating in their fatty tissues through the food chain.
“When they went to make their eggs, the enzymes that caused the shell to be thick enough to withstand incubation … wasn’t thick enough and the eggs broke and that got the birds in trouble,” Bird said.
He fears other chemicals like flame retardants or newer pesticides like neonicotinoids could impact prey birds.
Bird cited research indicating that neonicotinoids have impacted bumblebees and are hampering the migratory ability of some birds.
“Because these birds are eaten by peregrine falcons, if they get a decline in number, then it’s kind of like a double whammy,” Bird explained.
Developing an appreciation for nature
Despite some potential grey skies on the horizon, Bird remains hopeful for the future of peregrines thanks in part to the outreach efforts of people like Belisle.
Webcams installed in bird nests all over the world have been useful to researchers especially when it comes to observing unusual behaviours. Bird recounted the story of an eagle who found a teddy bear and brought it back to the nest where it was adopted by the eaglets.
In another instance, a baby red-tailed hawk that was meant to be a meal for some baby eagles ended up surviving and was raised as their sibling.
The UdeM falcons have had their own share of unusual moments. One year, a chick whose leg was deformed refused to leave the nest even after the next brood arrived the following year.
“She decided to stay with the mum and dad and wouldn’t go away and kept trying to stick her body in underneath the mom to sit on the eggs,” Bird explained.
She eventually struck out on her own and despite her misshapen leg turned into a great hunter. Bird said the female ended up mating with her own brother.
“So what Eve (Belisle) and I and others did is we wrote a scientific paper up on all of this soap opera,” Bird said. “That’s just not something that happens every day in a peregrine falcon.”
But more important than the papers is how impactful the cameras can be in raising awareness in the general population.
“Most people in the city, they’re not aware that we have such beautiful nature and beautiful birds that are living right in the middle of the city,” Belisle said.
She’s especially excited about having classrooms following along on YouTube, in case peregrines need their help in the future.
“They’ll know that the falcons are there,” she said. “They’ll be loving them already and willing to protect them.”
Bird is of the same mind.
“Getting to see the fastest moving organism in the world nesting and getting to watch it go through its breeding routine is quite special,” he said. “And I think I think it helps make people, particularly urbanites, appreciate the beauty of nature.”
Bird hopes that appreciation will turn into action if and when it’s ever needed.
“If (the peregrines) get into trouble like they did with the DDT, for example, then people will care and they’ll vote in politicians that will pass laws and so on to help the birds out.”