Photos: 2 Falcon Fledglings Hatched, 2 to Go

It has been just over a month since a female peregrine falcon, nesting atop the Evanston Public Library, laid four eggs. Within the past week, two fledglings have hatched.

The first bird hatched Wednesday and the second on Sunday, according to "Evanston Peregrine Falcon Watch," a Yahoo! group created by a devoted collection of followers who regularly monitor the birds on the Evanston Public Library’s live-stream feed, dubbed FalconCam.

Falcons first began nesting in the upper reaches of the library building in 2004, and the current couple, Nona and Squawker, has been together for eight years.

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Nona and Squawker have recently been observed taking turns watching over the fledglings, taking off to go hunt and feeding the young birds by regurgitating what they catch.

Peregrine falcons mate for life and normally nest on cliffs. But after pesticides threatened the species’ population in the early 1970s, the birds sought out new suitable habitats, many settling on building ledges in urban areas.

Based on patterns in the library’s records of past nesting periods, fledglings are left untouched in the nest for nearly three weeks, at which time they are  so that they can be tracked throughout their lifetime.

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