One less in the nest: Cathedral falcon dies

One of the peregrine falcons born atop the Cathedral of Learning this year died last week when… One of the peregrine falcons born atop the Cathedral of Learning this year died last week when he flew into a window and broke his neck.

“Birds striking windows is the single largest cause [of their] mortality in North America,” said National Aviary spokesman Todd Katzner. “He was young and dumb and hadn’t figured things out, and he paid for it dearly.”

Katzner speculated that the falcon, born April 30, saw his reflection in the Rand Building window before colliding with it just before noon last Tuesday.

Katzner said that researchers are working to make cities safer for birds by developing a special coating for windows so that birds won’t see their reflections. He said that the small silhouettes some people put in windows don’t really scare birds.

Kate St. John, creator of the bird-watching blog, “Outside My Window,” and volunteer overseer of the falcons since 2001, ran to see the falcon from her workplace at WQED and arrived within minutes of the accident.

“The Pennsylvania Game Commission allowed me to bury him but in an unmarked grave somewhere in Oakland,” said St. John.

On her blog, St. John said that the falcon, posthumously named “Sky” by a woman who commented on the blog entry about his death, was still warm when she arrived, but Sky did not die alone.

“I think one of the other chicks was there to see it. One was definitely with Sky when it happened, and I think an adult falcon flew over when people were standing there,” said St. John.

Initially, Sky did not have a name because birds are not named in Pennsylvania to prevent people from thinking of them as pets. However, Katzner explained that sometimes these birds reach a sort of “celebrity status,” and naming them makes talking about them easier.

Despite this accident, Katzner said that man-made urban nests for peregrine falcons have been successful. He said that there are fewer falcon predators like great horned owls in cities, and falcons habitually take over pre-existing nests.

“One unique thing about falcons is they don’t build their own nests. They either steal the nests of other birds, or they scrape depressions into cliff sides,” said Katzner.

There are five or six falcon nests on buildings and bridges in Pittsburgh, including the one on the Gulf Tower Downtown, said Katzner.

St. John said that these nests helped to remove the peregrine falcon from the national endangered species list in 1999, but the falcon population hasn’t rebounded completely in Pennsylvania.

“In the ’70s, peregrine falcons went extinct everywhere east of the Mississippi [River].

“The birds are still endangered in Pennsylvania. They still haven’t returned to the population that existed before DDT [a chemical pesticide responsible for endangering the falcons by making the shells of their eggs too thin to support the weight of an adult falcon during incubation], and there’s still much work to be done,” said St. John.