Wildlife officials to band falcon chicks today [video]

May 21, 2012 | Events, UToday
By Meghan Cunningham



Naturalists from the Ohio Department of Natural Resource’s Division of Wildlife will band the 2012 UT peregrine falcon chicks Monday, May 21, at 2 p.m.

The free, public event will take place outside the Student Union where tables will be set up.

Rain or high winds could postpone the event.

Officials confirmed May 4 that UT’s resident peregrines, Belle and Allen, are the parents of four chicks this year. A video taken from a helmet-can posted on YouTube from that day has been viewed more than 41,000 times.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl8RURVdi2E&feature=share

Ohio wildlife crews will bring the baby birds down from their top-of-the-tower nest and give each one a leg identification band so that it can be tracked after it migrates from its birthplace. Blood also will be drawn from the chicks and they will be weighed to help determine their overall health.

This is the sixth successful brood for the adult peregrines since the division installed a nesting platform on the tower in 2007.

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