Evanston to Hold Falcon Banding Ceremony May 30

Evanston Public Library will hold a Falcon Banding Ceremony May 30 to attach identification rings to the four peregrine falcons that recently hatched at the library.  

During the ceremony residents are invited to watch the chicks get banded, named and sampled for blood, Daily Northwestern reported.

Each year, the fledgling falcons are named after famous Americans, librarians and literary characters.

Staff from the Field Museum and the Shedd Aquarium will band the baby falcons on the Main Library’s third floor, according to a Facebook page devoted to the falcons. 

This is the 10th consecutive year a peregrine falcon couple has nested in a column outside the top floor of the library. 

All of this year’s batch of peregrine falcon chicks hatched but out of last year’s batch of four falcon eggs, only two ended up hatching, Daily Northwesternreported.

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 nine years.

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. 

For the past several years, the library has installed a camera (dubbed FalconCam) that monitors the falcons 24 hours a day. A live stream of the video can be viewed through the library’s website, and a devoted group of followers -- calling themselves the Evanston Peregrine Falcon Watch -- regularly monitors the birds, posting updates about notable happenings on an online discussion board. 

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