By Riona Duncan
If you look at the FalconCam web stream set up on top of the Cathedral of Learning, you won’t see the falcons that were born there earlier this spring. On June 4, the young birds fledged and left the nest.
But the young falcons are likely still in Oakland. That’s because even after fledging, the young birds still need their parents to help feed them for up to four weeks. After they develop hunting skills whereby they soar at high altitudes and can reach 200 miles per hour during their hunting dives, the young birds will fly away to find new homes in a process called natal dispersal.
Peregrine falcons are named for the Latin word for “wanderer,” and can fly hundreds of miles away from where they were born.
“We typically trade peregrines with [other falcon monitoring] projects from all around the Eastern U.S., the Northeastern U.S. especially, and Southern Canada,” said ornithologist Bob Mulvihill. “I remember one year the Pennsylvania Game Commission put transmitters on some of the young. One of them just flew straight to coastal New Jersey in two days and boom, it was at the beach.”
Falcons born at the Cathedral of Learning have also been found nesting in Ohio, New York, and Ontario.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission put bands on the young falcons this year. People who spot them can go to reportband.gov and submit information about the encounter so that researchers can track where the birds end up.
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The 2026 federal budget bill has proposed cuts that would eliminate the U.S. Geological Survey’s Bird Banding Laboratory, a program established in 1920, which means that future falcons might not be able to be banded. The Bird Banding Laboratory gives out federal permits to band birds. Without a permit, it’s illegal to place markers on birds protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act protects over 1000 species, including peregrine falcons.
This year, while banding the falcon chicks at Pitt, researchers also took weights and measurements. This allowed them to determine that two of the juveniles are likely females and one is likely male, because female falcons are larger than males.
Peregrine falcons were removed from Pennsylvania’s threatened and endangered species list in 2021, but they are still banded at the Cathedral of Learning nest for educational reasons. The FalconCam is a project by the National Aviary to connect people to nature by allowing the public to see into the nest of the falcons. It is supported by the University of Pittsburgh and regularly reported on by a popular Pittsburgh birding blog.
The young birds are the second brood raised by Carla and Ecco, the nesting pair of falcons on top of the Cathedral of Learning.
“Raising all three chicks was a good outcome for the pair and suggests we might be at the cusp of a long period of time where they are producing young,” said Mulvihill. “I think there’s going to be a great future for them.”
