Turnovers are a bad thing in basketball and football, but a change of possession may be just the ticket for Macomb County’s Peregrine falcons.
We’ve followed the nesting foibles of Horus and Hathor since 2005 – five tries at having chicks and nothing to show for it.
But now there’s a new male in Hathor’s world, high atop the Macomb County Building in downtown Mount Clemens: He’s Nick, a 2-year-old who hails from the Whittier Towers on the Detroit Riverfront.
Yes. Horus is history, replaced by a male half his age.
Nick and Hathor are busily incubating four healthy-looking eggs, a fact confirmed on Tuesday, April 15, by Kariann Anderson, a Peregrine specialist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.
Should Nick and Hathor’s parenting prowess pay off, the new chicks should hatch around mid-May.
The county Web cam that's been used in past years to show the nest live on the Internet will be activated around the first week of June when a chick, or chicks, are banded by the DNR. We hope to show the banding live on the Internet. Then the camera will be installed so everyone can see the young develop over the next month, when they should be ready to take their first flight.
Anderson is hopeful for Hathor and her new beau because the emergence of healthy chicks would mark the end of a long and so far fruitless journey for Hathor.
Her most heartbreaking moments were losing a chick in 2007 that died just a few days after being hatched and the loss of Alexa in 2005. Alexa grew large enough to fly but was killed the next day when struck by a car.
The nest is located in a ledge box off the northeast corner of the County Building’s 11th Floor – high above the intersection of Cass Avenue and North Gratiot.
As for Horus, he has decided to go back to school and has settled into a new nest at Wayne State University. |
Macomb County Web Site
