Peregrine falcons are famous for being the world’s fastest animal, and UND’s water tower has been a nest site for them for the past 15 years.   

“April 15 is when she started incubating, as best as I can tell,” Tim Driscoll, Director of the Urban Raptor Research Project said, referring to the female peregrine falcon who has taken up residence in the water tower nest box this year with her mate.   

Driscoll emphasized that without 24-hour surveillance, exact precision in these judgments is impossible. He joked humbly that he may be off by a day or two but certainly not a month or two. Having been the community’s “hawk guy” for the last 20 years, Driscoll’s approximations on the nesting habits of local birds of prey are about the most accurate you can get.   

He recalled the early days of his peregrine project, “in the beginning, if you’d have told me we’d have a mating pair every year, I’d have said, ‘just cool your jets, we’ll see.”   

He and his late father, a superior carpenter as he noted, constructed the nesting box that housed Grand Forks’ first pair, Terminator and Bear, back in 2008. For the first two years, the nesting box was set up on the Smiley water tower. Smiley’s demolition in 2009 was deliberately scheduled after the falcon’s southern migration, and the box was relocated to the UND water tower where it has remained since. The box has hosted a mating pair of peregrine falcons every year since its installation and has produced an astonishing 42 fledglings.   

This year, Driscoll reports he first sighted the male on March 11, and the female showed up on March 13. Frustrating to identification efforts, both birds are unbanded. Peregrine falcons, however, take nest sites very seriously, Driscoll explained. Not only must a good site be won and defended, but breeding adults are more likely to be loyal to a nest site than a particular partner. This behavior makes a strong argument that at least one of this year’s pair nested here last year. Driscoll suspects they may both have.   

Peregrine falcons are partially migratory, meaning their migratory patterns can vary depending on the bird. Several factors contribute to this phenomenon, including genetic makeup, food availability and mate availability. Driscoll pointed out that every bird has its own personality. Even the nests of individual families of birds vary the way our friends’ homes do.   

“Our birds are very neat though. They keep a tidy nest,” he noted about UND’s falcons.   

Peregrine falcons were once an endangered species in North America, largely due to deaths caused by consuming prey containing DDT, a once-prevalent pesticide. DDT was banned in 1972 [1], but it took considerable captive breeding and reintroduction efforts to stabilize the species’ endangered population. Thanks to the resilient and adaptive nature of the bird, they are no longer endangered today. Research like Driscoll’s bolsters the falcon’s status and recognition and helps prevent future endangerment.  

Driscoll predicts that the eggs will hatch around May 20. The chicks must reach a certain stage of maturation before it is safe to band them, so June 10 is a tentative prediction for the public introduction of this year’s peregrine falcon nestlings.  

[1] Wolfanger, Cassie. Making Sense of the Peregrine Falcon’s Variable Migration Patterns. Priority Bird Monitoring and Management. Audubon. September 30, 2022. 

Quindelynne Davis is a Dakota Student General Reporter. She can be reached at [email protected].