THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 5, 1995 TAG: 9511030233
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Coastal Journal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
An endangered peregrine falcon has taken a liking to the pigeons that fly around Virginia House on Atlantic Avenue.
Virginia Ferguson, who lives at Virginia House, called to tell me about the handsome slate-gray and white bird with distinctive moustache that has been hanging around the building for close to six weeks. If Ferguson leans out of her apartment window and looks down, she often can see the bird on one of its favorite roosts.
The crow-sized peregrine sits on the 10th-story ledge on the northwest corner of the building, where it picks apart a hapless pigeon or smaller bird that serves as its meal for the day, she said. After Ferguson called, I drove to Virginia House and sure enough, the feasting falcon was there, exactly where she said I might find it.
With the naked eye, I could see the shape of a bird on the ledge. With binoculars, I could easily see it was a peregrine, although I couldn't tell what it was eating.
Pigeons seem to be its meal of choice however. According to David Castor, maintenance engineer at Virginia House, pigeons have been a problem there, but no longer.
``Pigeons love the balconies here,'' Castor said. ``People put out the fake owls and they just land on them, but ever since the falcon has shown up, we haven't seen many pigeons. He keeps them under control.''
Peregrines capture birds on the wing, flying at spectacular speeds, up to 180 mph. One day, Nick Toby, service assistant at Virginia House, by chance saw the falcon go after and miss a small bird.
``I saw him swoop down, sort of like dive down,'' Toby said. ``He was definitely going after that bird. He was on the attack.''
The falcon is dining on three to four birds a day, some of them small ones, Castor said. He knows this because of the bird parts that fall to the sidewalk and must be swept up every morning. Still, Castor said, ``I'd rather have the falcon than the pigeons.''
Peregrines naturally nest in old eagle and hawk nests or on cliff edges. Before pesticides wiped out their population in Virginia, peregrines nested in Appalachian Mountain cliffs. Over the years, young birds have been reintroduced to the state mostly from hacking towers and other manmade structures. More than a dozen pairs are known to nest here now.
Norfolk has had a celebrity pair of peregrines that have successfully fledged young from bank buildings and bridges downtown for close to 15 years. Several falcon pairs also nest on the Eastern Shore, one nests on the York River Bridge and one in Newport News, among other sites, said our local hawk expert, Reese Lukei.
Maybe Virginia Beach is on the verge of getting its first resident peregrine, too. ``If he's been hanging around (Virginia House) that long, he's got other things on his mind,'' Lukei said. ``Maybe he'll stick around. I'm wondering if there may be two.''
Every year as a volunteer for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Lukei uses pigeons as lures to trap and then band hawks on the Eastern Shore as the birds gather to cross the Chesapeake Bay on their fall migration. He often bands hawks that hang around Virginia Beach, too.
In November 1992, Lukei trapped a falcon at Bayville Farms and found the bird already had been banded on top of the Cornell Medical Building in New York City in May of that year. Now he is wondering if the Virginia House peregrine is the same one he found at Bayville.
Lukei hopes to get close enough to see a band with his scope if there is one around the peregrine's leg. He doesn't want to trap this bird and frighten it off because he would like it to stay in Virginia Beach.
From past bandings, ornithologists are learning that birds born in an urban setting tend to nest in urban areas. ``They imprint on the ledge of a building rather than a cliff,'' Lukei explained.
Virginia House looks like a fine cliff to me.
P.S. I don't know who took the photos of Leo E. Ullman and his lovely garden that were part of last Sunday's column, but I was incorrectly given credit.
WORLD WAR II IN POSTERS, an exhibit from the War Memorial Museum in Newport News, will open Tuesday at the Life-Saving Museum of Virginia. The Navy and U.S. Merchant Marine posters promote wartime security, such as variations on ``A Slip of the Lip Will Sink a Ship.'' To find out more, call 422-1587.
EXPLORE THE LIVES OF THE CHESAPEAKE INDIANS at programs from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 7, for kindergarten through second grade and on Thursday, Nov. 9, for third through sixth grade at the Virginia Marine Science Museum. Fees are $4 for members and $6 for non-members. Call 437-6003. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen? And what do you know about Tidewater
lore? Call me on INFOLINE, 640-5555. Enter category 2290. Or, message
my Internet address: mbarrow(AT)infi.net.
ILLUSTRATION: Photos
Reese Lukei holds the peregrine falcon he banded at Bayville Farms
in 1992. Now he is hoping to get a close enough look to determine if
the Virginia House peregrine is the same one.
by CNB