Four baby Peregrines nesting on the ledge of the Sheraton Hotel’s 43rd floor were banded Tuesday morning as part of a Ministry of Natural Resources program to keep track of the magnificent winged creatures when they fly south.

“It allows us to not only monitor the health and welfare of the young hatchlings but the banding to help us monitor these young birds as they grow older and their dispersals during migration,” said Mark Nash, director of the Canadian Peregrine Foundation.

“The bands have alphanumeric codes and these digits are entered into (Canada and U.S.) federal wildlife databases, so regardless of where this bird is found in North America, the info can be found just like a Social Insurance Number.”

Each chick is outfitted with a black band on its leg to offer them protection when they migrate south against the U.S. harvest of peregrine falcons.
“If caught, it will be released back into the wild and not spend its life in captivity,” Nash explained.

Surrounded by adoring bird lovers and cooing photographers, two MNR biologists brought the four chicks in using a crate. Then carefully handling each one, they put the falcons into a bucket on a scale.

“This is to determine their sex,” Nash said. “Given the biology of the birds, we know the females are larger than the males, so the weighing is a very important process.”

The two female birds — Kate and Sunshine — and their brothers William and Cinnamon are all between 16 and 21 days old.

The birds were clearly annoyed judging by all the “fowl language” of their squawks but calmed down after their first-ever gulp of water.

While all this was happening, two other MNR staffers distracting the chicks’ parents from noticing the babies were gone, so they don’t abandon the flight.

The baby Peregrines, with their new leg bands, will now spend the next two weeks growing their feathers and learning how to fly — that means stumbling off the edge of the hotel for their first flaps.

The banding program has helped bring the species back from the endangered list since the 1980s, upgrading its status to “threatened” two years ago.

“In 2011, we have about 15 nesting Peregrines in Southern Ontario and the provincial population — up to 80-plus occupied territories in Ontario,” Nash said. “Back in 1980, we had zero. It’s still a fragile recovery, but needless to say the species are on the rebuild.”

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