DAVENPORT, Iowa – Hatching typically happens around Memorial Day, but there are no eggs on the peregrine falcon nest at MidAmerican Energy in Davenport, Iowa.
Scorpio, the female and P/D, the male, have raised more than a dozen chicks since they made the nest their home, outside a 10th floor window at the building at 106 E. Second Street, in 2003. Bridge construction forced the pair from their original home on the Centennial bridge. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources installed a nesting box at the MidAmerican Energy building and the falcons immediately used it as their home.
“Hatching has historically been around Memorial Day nearly every year, so she (Scorpio) would be sitting on them (eggs) by now,” said MidAmerican Energy spokesman David Sebben. “Not ruse what the reason is this year, other than the possible age issue.”
Scorpio was released at Ball State University as part of a Wildlife Recovery program in 1999 and began nesting in Davenport in 2000.
Peregrine falcons typically live to be 15 to 17 years old, Sebben said.
Although P/D did not return to the nest in 2015, Scorpio laid four eggs there in 2015 and one of them hatched May 7. E/60 was the new male; he hatched in a nest at the U.S. Bank Building in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 2007. It was unclear whether P/D had died (he was 16 years old) or if he was driven from the nest by the younger male.
Peregrine falcons were on the threatened or endangered species lists of Iowa, Illinois and South Dakota. With the elimination of DDT in the early 1970’s, the peregrine falcons have made a tremendous comeback and have been removed from the endangered species list, but are still on the protected raptor list.
