AKRON, Ohio (AP) - Two Ohio wildlife workers had to fend off a falcon while trying to take her chicks from a nest on the ledge of a downtown building.
The peregrine falcon named Chesapeake screeched and swooped on the Ohio Department of Natural Resources staffers who were trying to take the two chicks from a nesting box on an 11th-floor ledge to band them this week.
The bird even drew blood with her talons from the ODNR’s Bryan Kay.
Chesapeake and her mate, McKinley, finally calmed down after the two 18-day-old chicks, both males, were returned to the nesting box with new leg bands.
The ODNR’s Laurie Graber told the Akron Beacon Journal (https://bit.ly/1pCJK3n ) it was “a pretty good battle” with the protective mother bird.
“She is very feisty and mean,” Graber said, adding that the biggest fear was that the adult birds would accidentally push the chicks off the ledge in their crazed efforts to protect them.
They were not the first wildlife officers to suffer the wrath of Chesapeake in her 14 years in Akron via Detroit. Chesapeake’s mate came from Canton in 2009.
The falcons were previously an endangered species. They were moved to the state’s less-critical threatened list in 2008 as their numbers grew. Wildlife agencies will review the falcons’ status again in 2015.
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Information from: Akron Beacon Journal, https://www.ohio.com
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