“When you can spark an interest in a kid and get a kid thinking about the environment and things beyond, I find that thrilling.”
Zero. When Mary Hennen was growing up, that was the total number of peregrine falcons living anywhere near her home in Chicago. Even in the wilder areas Mary would visit in summer, in Vilas County in northern Wisconsin, no peregrine falcons could be seen anywhere. In fact, in the nineteen sixties, these impressive birds had gone missing from the entire eastern half of the United States.
But Mary recalls finding other connections to nature, and those helped lay a path that eventually led her to run the program that successfully brought populations of peregrine falcons back to life. “Some of my earliest memories of being four or five, I’d be in Vilas County walking the little boat road with my grandmother, looking under the tree to see if the little fawn was sleeping there,” Mary said. That time spent outdoors led Mary to get a degree in wildlife from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. In the nineteen eighties, she returned to Chicago and wound up becoming a key player in an audacious effort to bring peregrine falcons back from the brink of extinction.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? DID MARY & THE OTHERS SUCCEED?
The conservation specialists on peregrine falcons had what sounded like a truly insane idea: reintroduce the birds not to wilderness areas but to large cities. In nature, when left to their own devices, peregrine falcons nest in canyon environments and for food, they eat other birds. The thinking was that in a city, tall skyscrapers could mimic canyon walls where the birds could nest, and a plentiful supply of pigeons could become the peregrines’ buffet.
This unpromising sounding plan totally worked. Not just slightly, but astonishingly well. Adults were fine with using ledges on buildings as places to nest, and they had no trouble finding one another, courting and mating. Their little fluffy chicks hatched out and fledged, no problem.
This year marked the 30th anniversary from when Mary spotted her first peregrine. “In 1988, I went to see that first peregrine nest site, the first one in the state of Illinois since 1951. The female was flying around the Sears Tower, going after a yellow-bellied sapsucker. My first sight of a peregrine was her in this phenomenal dive after another bird. It was just astounding.”
Today Illinois has around thirty known nesting territories for the falcons, with about twenty in or near Chicago. (Numbers and locations change slightly from year to year.) The program has been so successful that peregrine falcons have been officially removed from Illinois’ list of endangered species.
For more information about Mary and her team’s incredible work and about the birds themselves, see the Chicago Peregrine Program and its frequently asked questions page.
WHAT IF YOU LOVE FAST, HANDSOME BIRDS AND WANT TO HELP?
Mary’s ability to track how nesting sites are doing and where new nest spring up is dependent on the information she receives from people who live or work near peregrine nest sites or who happen by chance to see one when they’re out somewhere. Wildlife photographers have played a particularly key role in pointing Mary toward peregrines that nest in natural cliffs distant from Chicago.The most important thing you can do to assist the Chicago Peregrine Program is when you spot a falcon, be prepared to take down and report some information. Report the sighting to Mary, and if you can manage to take a photo that shows the band on the bird’s leg, that’s even better. Email the information to Mary at mhennen@fieldmuseum.org with a subject line of “Citizen peregrine report.”
Of course, stupendously large donations are an effective way to help as well. So feel free to go that direction. Send big bucks to the Field Museum of Natural History and tell them you want the money to go to the Chicago Peregrine Program. Or call the development office at the museum at (312) 665-7777.
Peyton does a dramatic flyby. This male peregrine and his mate hatched two chicks this year on the thirty-seventh story ledge of a building in downtown Chicago. Photo by Jill Riddell.
Each peregrine chick is given a band by Mary’s team. The metal bands are carefully sized to fit, they have no sharp edges, and they don’t affect anything about the bird’s ability to function. The practice of banding is centuries old and is essential to bird conservation. It helps us understand birds’ movements and habits. Photo by Stephanie Ware.
The vision of a peregrine falcon is fantastically good. They can see one mile and can track three moving objects at one time. If you’re in the vicinity of one calmly perched, the bird appears to make direct eye contact with you. Photo by Stephanie Ware