Peregrine Falcons

At first, all you see is a fuzz ball. It's bigger than a tennis ball, slightly smaller than a softball, and quivering.Then one little beaked head pokes up, surveys the glorious view of the Inner Harbor and decides it's not all that interesting. The bird that makes up the other half of the fuzzball ruffles its wings, and the two siblings snuggle back together.The pair of week-old peregrine falcons, in their gravel box on a 33rd floor ledge of the USF&G building in downtown Baltimore, are the 52nd and 53rd chicks to come from the mid-Atlantic's most celebrated nest.

Thirty-three years after an endangered peregrine falcon named Scarlett was released from her breeding facility and raised foster chicks and later her own hatchlings on a 33rd-floor ledge of a Baltimore skyscraper, the bird's heirs are still bringing more peregrines into the world. The latest young falcon, or eyas, hatched earlier this spring and is expected to test her wings next month. She is the youngest in a nearly unbroken succession of close to 100 young peregrines to fledge from the same aerie on the former USF&G and later Legg Mason tower, at 100 Light St. Craig Koppie, a raptor biologist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, is keeping watch over the family.

Baltimore's latest crop of pigeon-killers made their media debut today. But they hardly resembled the fast-flying predators they will one day grow to be.Dressed in snow-white down, the 10-day-old peregrine falcons huddled in a corner of their nest box, which overlooks the Inner Harbor from a 33rd-floor ledge of the United States Fidelity & Guaranty building.Mostly, the two females and one male dozed. The male, snuggled between the two larger females, raised its head briefly.Felicity, their mother, was clearly agitated, sensing the movement of camera crews and others inside the building behind a one-way window.

IN FOLLOWING peregrine falcons, the most affecting thing I found was the magnitude of their transcontinental journeys. During the course of these global pilgrimages, tundra-living Arctic falcons -- like the countless smaller migrants streaming northward on spring migration below our little Cessna -- awed my pilot and me with what I can only call their grandeur of purpose. It was a determination to reach some far shore that is also expressed in the epic journeys of a few mammals, reptiles and fish.

A family of peregrine falcons was reunited yesterday when a fledgling bird that had fallen into the Chesapeake Bay a week ago and was cared for at the Baltimore Zoo was returned to her nest on the Bay Bridge.One lane of bridge traffic was closed for 15 minutes yesterday morning while the bird was returned to the nest below the roadway in the center of the westbound span of the bridge.The bird, a 49-day-old female, was one of two young falcons born to the nesting pair at the bridge this year.

The first quarter of 1991 hasn't been a total loss for USF&G Corp.Blythe and Beauregard, the two peregrine falcons that have nested on the 33rd-floor ledge of the company's headquarters building in downtown Baltimore since 1985, have produced yet another healthy quartet of dividends.The arrival of the four new chicks, or eyases, was announced yesterday, on the same day the insurance company announced $55 million in first quarter losses. The young birds actually hatched two weeks ago, during Earth Week, after a month-long incubation, company officials said.

The Department of Natural Resources has scheduled a series of public meetings to discuss freshwater fishery regulations for next year.To be discussed at the four meetings are: tailwater trout fisheries in the Savage and Gunpowder rivers and the North Branch of the Potomac; special regulations for trout streams; the tidal largemouth bass fishery; the smallmouth bass fishery, and the status of reciprocal license agreements for the tidal Potomac.Changes under consideration include the expansion of the put-and-take trout fishery, catch-and-return trout fishing areas and trophy bass fishing areas.

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. -- A unique project started in Santa Cruz 17 years ago to increase California's dwindling population of peregrine falcons has made so much progress that researchers will stop breeding the birds after the spring.In what environmentalists are calling an encouraging success story similar to the recovery of the California gray whale, scientists at the Predatory Bird Research Group on the University of California, Santa Cruz campus say peregrines don't need their help to reproduce anymore.

This year's baby Peregrine falcons on the southward-facing window ledge of the 33rd floor of the Legg Mason building wobble and hop back and forth, beaks in rapid motion, tiny tongues wriggling with their shrill cries for food. They're as cute as fluffy alarm clocks. The baby falcons, or eyases, take turns tearing off what they can from a bird's wing left over from a previous meal - probably a pigeon, starling or sparrow - as their mother keeps a silent vigil, extending her wings at the sight of visitors to signal the threat she poses not only to unsuspecting pigeons, but humans who venture too close.

HARPERS FERRY, W.Va. - Three peregrine falcons completed their journey yesterday from the Chesapeake Bay to a perch overlooking this historic town - without flying an inch. Too young to take flight, the baby birds instead were plucked from their nest near Hart-Miller Island and ferried to a rocky cliff that was last patrolled by their ancestors half a century ago. Park rangers and federal and state naturalists hope the rare falcons take to their new home - and establish what would be the only known mountain nesting site for Maryland's peregrines.

This year's baby Peregrine falcons on the southward-facing window ledge of the 33rd floor of the Legg Mason building wobble and hop back and forth, beaks in rapid motion, tiny tongues wriggling with their shrill cries for food. They're as cute as fluffy alarm clocks. The baby falcons, or eyases, take turns tearing off what they can from a bird's wing left over from a previous meal - probably a pigeon, starling or sparrow - as their mother keeps a silent vigil, extending her wings at the sight of visitors to signal the threat she poses not only to unsuspecting pigeons, but humans who venture too close.

HARPERS FERRY, W.Va. - Three peregrine falcons completed their journey yesterday from the Chesapeake Bay to a perch overlooking this historic town - without flying an inch. Too young to take flight, the baby birds instead were plucked from their nest near Hart-Miller Island and ferried to a rocky cliff that was last patrolled by their ancestors half a century ago. Park rangers and federal and state naturalists hope the rare falcons take to their new home - and establish what would be the only known mountain nesting site for Maryland's peregrines.

The peregrine falcon will be removed from the endangered species list, according to a proposal to be announced today by Bruce Babbitt, secretary of the Department of the Interior."

HAVRE DE GRACE -- Most of my greenish friends are shocked and outraged at the Navy's intentions to use Bloodsworth Island, a 6,000-acre marshy archipelago in the Chesapeake Bay south of Hooper Straits, to train SEAL teams.The greens, including both a small number who know Bloodsworth well and a much larger number who have never seen it and would be distinctly unhappy if marooned there in mosquito season, are pulling out all the weapons they can find to block the plan. These range from old political IOUs to great blue herons, from '60s-style anti-militarism to baby peregrine falcons.

A family of peregrine falcons was reunited yesterday when a fledgling bird that had fallen into the Chesapeake Bay a week ago and was cared for at the Baltimore Zoo was returned to her nest on the Bay Bridge.One lane of bridge traffic was closed for 15 minutes yesterday morning while the bird was returned to the nest below the roadway in the center of the westbound span of the bridge.The bird, a 49-day-old female, was one of two young falcons born to the nesting pair at the bridge this year.

Two peregrine falcons born in different years to the same set of parents in Baltimore are nesting together on the James River Bridge in Newport News, Va.It is the first time since the endangered birds began breeding in Baltimore in 1984 that any of the offspring born here are known to have paired with siblings.Scientists are monitoring the birds, but have no plans to break up the match to prevent inbreeding. Peregrine experts say there is nothing to worry about.Captive breeding experiments once paired brother-and-sister peregrines "and there's no problem with their offspring," said Bill Heinrich, release coordinator at the Peregrine Fund's World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho.

HAVRE DE GRACE -- Most of my greenish friends are shocked and outraged at the Navy's intentions to use Bloodsworth Island, a 6,000-acre marshy archipelago in the Chesapeake Bay south of Hooper Straits, to train SEAL teams.The greens, including both a small number who know Bloodsworth well and a much larger number who have never seen it and would be distinctly unhappy if marooned there in mosquito season, are pulling out all the weapons they can find to block the plan. These range from old political IOUs to great blue herons, from '60s-style anti-militarism to baby peregrine falcons.

LONDON -- You know something's up in Britain when you learn people are stealing ducks.Not just any ducks either. Collectible ducks: Cuban whistling ducks, smew, buffleheads, Cape shovelers, Barrow's golden eye, South American black-headed duck -- ducks too exotic to be identified.Sixty ducks have already been stolen from the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge in Gloucestershire. Private collectors are also losing rare ducks.Wildfowl experts are beginning to worry about organized ducknapping rings stealing birds to order for foreign collectors.

Baltimore's most famous peregrine falcons have hatched a new family on a 33rd-floor ledge of a downtown office tower, completing one of the city's local rites of spring.Felicity, the aerie's current female occupant, hatched three eggs over the weekend. Two more contain chicks that are peeping."They're calling, and we're expecting those to hatch at any hour," said John Barber. He is a former Smithsonian Institution ornithologist whose employment at USF&G Corp. made him the perfect choice to study and protect the birds after the first one settled in 1978 at the company's office tower at Lombard and Light streets.

At first, all you see is a fuzz ball. It's bigger than a tennis ball, slightly smaller than a softball, and quivering.Then one little beaked head pokes up, surveys the glorious view of the Inner Harbor and decides it's not all that interesting. The bird that makes up the other half of the fuzzball ruffles its wings, and the two siblings snuggle back together.The pair of week-old peregrine falcons, in their gravel box on a 33rd floor ledge of the USF&G building in downtown Baltimore, are the 52nd and 53rd chicks to come from the mid-Atlantic's most celebrated nest.