Connection: Raising Young

Falconers licensed to take wild hawks and falcons for captive breeding programs are largely responsible for the widespread comeback of the peregrine falcon - and a spectacle that has been enjoyed by Spokane-area bird-watchers.

In the early 1990s, young peregrines that had been hatched in a captive breeding program approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were banded and released as fledglings near the mouth of the Clark Fork River.

A pair of the peregrines that had been released there was spotted during spring five years ago in Spokane.

Four years ago, birders confirmed that these falcons, identified by their leg bands, were raising young in a nest under the old Sunset Highway bridge over Hangman Creek.

Since then, the pair has raised two or three chicks every year at that site. The chicks hatch around Memorial Day and make their first flights, appropriately, around Independence Day.

People who spend time at the bridge from mid-May through early August can witness fascinating aerial displays by the “Top Guns” of the local skies as they stoop on white-throated swifts that nest under the adjacent railroad trestle.

The peregrines normally disperse by September.