Unhatched Egg Report

As stewards of the peregrine falcon population in Ohio, it is the Ohio Division of Wildlife's responsibility to foster these birds and protect them. Part of that protection includes monitoring their reproduction. We note when nests succeed as well as when they do not. Given a failure, the responsible thing to do is to evaluate the eggs to determine why they did not hatch. Productivity information such as this is compiled throughout the Midwest and is used to track the species' progress over time throughout the region.

I had an unexpected opening occur in my schedule this morning so I took advantage of it to go ahead and remove the eggs from the nestbox. None of the 5 eggs were fertile. It is probably good then that Durand gave up early vs. sitting on them past the expected hatch date. This way she can get on with simply being a falcon and defending the territory when/if need be. We will hope for a better outcome in 2012!

There was no sign of either falcon while I was downtown today. As usual, we'll keep the cameras up throughout the summer to help monitor the presence of Durand, the male, and any other falcon(s) that may make an appearance. This is the last of the regular nesting season updates however, if/when anything notable occurs I will post it here. Thanks everybody, for your continued support and interest in the ODNR, Division of Wildlife's Columbus FalconCam!