Camera Chronicles Seattle Family Meanwhile, Spokane Pair Of Falcons Nest In Obscurity

Sun., May 17, 1998

Rich Landers Outdoors Editor

Belle and Stewart, Seattle’s famous peregrine falcons, are terrorizing pigeons to feed two eyases in their nest high above the city.

The dutiful parents are offering hope and joy to birdwatchers saddened last weekend by the natural deaths of two other chicks in the nest.

The falcon family’s real-life triumph and tragedy is on public display through a color television monitor inside Washington Mutual’s Tower Financial Center.

A second monitor is in a financial center window near Third Avenue and University Street for after-hours and weekend viewing.

The scene is quite different in Spokane, where a pair of peregrines have returned for the second season, apparently trying to raise another brood under the Sunset Boulevard bridge over Hangman Creek.

Most people don’t notice the peregrines perching on the railroad trestle or lamps along Interstate 90 near the Highway 195 interchange.

In Seattle, one can call a 24-hour hotline to get updates on the peregrine family’s progress.

The newborn chicks will spend about six weeks in the nest before fledging taking their first flight.

The falcon project is sponsored by private companies and the Falcon Research Group, which offers free lectures about birds of prey each Friday during noon hour in the Tower Financial Center.

A different captive bird will be brought in each week for discussion.

In 1970, the peregrine falcon became a poster-critter for the yet to be enacted Endangered Species Act. Since the 1940s, the falcon had been a symbol of the perils of DDT and other pesticides.

As the chemicals accumulated in their prey, peregrines produced weak eggshells that broke during incubation.

Recovery began after Congress banned use of DDT in 1972, when only 39 nesting pairs of peregrines could be found in the United States. Nearly 1,000 nesting pairs were identified in 1995, making the peregrine a candidate for removal from the endangered species list.

HOTLINE Get daily updates on Seattle’s peregrine falcons by dialing the 24-hour hotline, (206) 654-4423.

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