And don’t they look thrilled. Last Friday a crew from the Audubon Society of Rhode Island (ASRI), along with photographer Peter Green, climbed atop the Superman Building to perform their annual banding visit to the peregrine nesting box. They were also able to determine the sex of the four eyases: two females and two males.
When the chicks are around three weeks old, their legs have stopped growing. This is the perfect time to band the birds because it ensures they will not grow out of their bands, and they are still very docile and easy to handle. Leg size is also the determining factor of the sex of the bird. Females are substantially larger than males — the bigger the leg, the bigger the bird!
Docile and easy to handle? I know I saw blood, although it’s not clear if the person was clawed or bitten. You can see the precautions (helmets, leather jackets, broom) the crew has taken to protect themselves from the alarmed and divebombing parents, but the banding requires considerable fine motor control and wearing gloves would be impossible. But this had me wondering: Isn’t there a tool for this by now?*
As always, urban wildlife photographer Peter Green of Providence Raptors, was on hand to document the event. He took these wonderful still photos, including this glowering basket of joy. The process was streamed live on Facebook with Mr. Green behind the camera for that as well. Go here to watch the 17-minute video. You may find yourself wanting to hit the mute — that squawking is pretty hard on the ears — but you may miss some interesting chatter among the crew.
Peter Green will be coming out with a book this summer, likely called Providence Raptors. Follow him for continued updates and more news about raptors. We focus on the peregrines because we have the camera there in the spring, but there are other raptors around town, from red-tailed hawks to bald eagles. He’s got ’em all.
*Could someone assign the industrial design department at RISD to come up with a tool that can be adjusted for leg diameter (a dial?) and preloaded with the tags? One person could wield the leg-measuring tool and another the tagger. There seems to be a lot of fussing around with baggies full of tiny things at a time when speed would seem to be desirable.
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See, they’re fine. This screen grab was taken minutes ago today, Sunday. They have completely recovered from (or forgotten) Friday’s traumatic manhandling and are eating like horses. Mr. Green reminds us that this four brings “the total to 61 since 2000 at 111 Westminster St. in Providence.” They always recover.
