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A young peregrine falcon is weighed while research biologists put an identification band on it at Possum Point Power Station in Dumfries. (suzanne carr rossi) ------ 4 col color
ABOVE: Bryan Watts and Libby Mojica, research biologists from the Center for Conservation Biology, band one of the two falcon chicks at the power plant.
A month-old peregrine falcon, one of two chicks nesting at the Possum Point Biologists Libby Mojica and Bryan Watts remove falcon chicks from a manmade nest 310 feet above the ground. |
By RUSTY DENNEN
DUMFRIES
--On a smokestack catwalk high above Possum Point Power Station, Bryan Watts and Libby Mojica carefully made their way to a nesting box where two peregrine falcon chicks were waiting.As the chicks' parents hovered nearby, screeching with concern, Watts, director of the Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William and Mary, and Mojica, a research biologist, carefully placed the month-old birds in cardboard carriers yesterday for their brief visit to the ground 310 feet below.
There the avian brothers would be weighed, measured and banded in the latest triumph of a creature that had all but disappeared from Virginia skies only a few decades ago.
Watts took one of the chicks, holding it firmly as workers and officials at the Dominion Virginia Power plant in Dumfries gathered around to snap pictures and marvel at its shrieking call and sharp talons.
"They have a heavy coat of down now, but they'll be losing that in about a week or so," Watts said.
Mojica used pliers to fasten a "field-readable" green and black band to each leg. The bands allow researchers to more easily identify the pair in the wild.
Watts noted a blue jay feather on the ground at the base of the smokestack. The feather was once attached to a snack for the chicks, caught by their parents.
Watts smiled at Bill Bolin, Dominion's chief biologist. "I bet you'd like them to take care of the starlings and pigeons you've got out here."
It would seem that a power plant would be the last place falcons would choose to nest.
But Watts says the birds see things from a different perspective. The plant overlooks a vast landscape along the Potomac River and Quantico Creek.
"Falcons like high-domain positions. In the mountains, that equates to cliff sites. On the coastal plain, that means bridges, tall buildings, or in this case, smokestacks. In a lot of ways, it's an ideal place."
It's a little more intimidating for their human watchers, who must take a small elevator up the stack while trying not to look down. And falcons, Watts says, can be aggressive defending their young. He and Mojica wore hard hats, gloves and safety glasses.
During a nest visit on the Benjamin Harrison Memorial Bridge over the James River in Prince George County, "a very aggressive female hit me in the side of the face," Watts said.
In an effort to hasten the falcons' comeback in Virginia, Dominion installed the nesting box at Possum Point 10 years ago.
It was vacant until last year. Then the chicks' parents moved in but produced no offspring. They returned this year and had better luck.
Dominion has nesting boxes at three other power plants, but only this one is occupied.
In a few weeks, the chicks will venture out on the catwalk and make their first tentative flights.
"They'll be hanging around for awhile," Watts said, as they learn to catch prey and hone other survival skills. Then they'll leave.
"They will wander wildly, from Canada to the tropics for a year or two," he said. "When they come back, they'll typically breed between Virginia and New Jersey."
The Possum Point falcons are among only 20 nesting pairs known in Virginia. Bridges and high-rise buildings are are also favored spots.
The William and Mary center and the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries monitor the population, which has hovered at a little more than 20 pairs each year since 2006.
Watts and Mojica have made three trips to Possum point this year and will return for one more visit after the chicks fledge.
Pesticides decimated falcon populations in Virginia, and across the nation. None were known to be breeding in the state from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s when the Center for Conservation Biology began an intense reintroduction effort.
Between 1978 and 1993, about 250 young falcons were released to re-colonize their historic range.
Watts said the Possum Point chicks are off to a good start.
"So far, so good."
Jeff Marcell, environmental supervisor at Possum Point, said workers have to be careful accessing emissions-monitoring equipment near the nesting box so as to not disturb the birds, which have been making themselves at home.
"We held a naming contest for them," he said.
Thomas Edison and Charles Lindbergh will soon soar somewhere overhead.
Center for Conservation Biology, ccb.wm.edu/
Rusty Dennen: 540/374-5431
Email: rdennen@freelancestar.com
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Peregrine (from the Latin word for traveler) falcons are found on every continent except Antarctica. They suffered dramatic worldwide population declines in the mid-1900s due to pesticides, with two of the three North American species decimated by the 1960s. They were listed as federally endangered in 1970, after which a national effort began to recover breeding populations. They were removed from the Endangered Species List in 1999. About the size of crows, adult falcons can have a wingspan of nearly 4 feet and can weigh nearly 3 pounds. The birds are arguably the fastest creatures on earth, with diving speeds exceeding 200 mph. --William and Mary Center for Conservation Biology, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service |
