There are a lot of anxious eyes on the site of the former Lakeview Generating Station plant these days, and many of them belong to birders.
While the political pundits are speculating on the prospect of a new gas-fired power plant being built at Lakeview, and trying to calculate the effect on the Oct. 10 provincial election, the plumage prognosticators are trying to figure out the chances that a pair of peregrine falcons may actually nest on the 80 ft. tower, with a 10-ft. extension housing a nesting box, that was built there last year.
Ontario Power Generation (OPG) built the box in an optimum location on the lakefront when the decision was made to remove the coal-fired generating station, where the falcons have been nesting for several years.
Mark Nash of the Canadian Peregrine Foundation (CPF), will be at Lakeview tomorrow to tour the property and see what kind of activity is going on.
The birds are definitely around, but Wayne Weller of OPG says they haven’t moved into the magnificent bird condo with the much-desired waterfront access. “They were back but they’ve gone,” Weller said earlier. It’s quite likely that all of the construction activity with the removal of the power plant has upset them. “Perhaps things will be different when they take down the building in June,” Weller said.
In order to use the tower — the first free-standing nesting structure of its kind ever in Canada according to Nash — the birds would have to break a few falcon rules, which is unlikely.
“They are hunter-predators and they love to dominate the airspace from the sky,”
says the CPF executive director. “When you encounter them in the wild, the first rule is that you never go behind them or above them.”
Since the superstructure of the remaining structures at Lakeview is still higher than the nesting box, the falcons are likely wary of setting up domicile anywhere below. The box was built as high as possible within acceptable safety limits, for just that reason.
One of the things Nash will check out tomorrow is whether the birds, who’ve been spotted fairly regularly in the vicinity, are nesting on the superstructure again.
It’s getting pretty late for finding a new nest. With wild birds, you never know what is likely to happen. They normally return to the site where they nested the previous year. If they don’t nest there this year, will they return in 2008?
There’s no way to know. If they don’t, another pair could always grab the listing.
While Lakeview is still in limbo, there is good news for the other Mississauga raptor nesting sites. At 1 Robert Speck Pkwy. in the city centre, at least three eggs have been spotted in the nest and a fourth is suspected. At St. Lawrence Cement in Clarkson, the home of the late great Nate, two eggs were confirmed March 29 and things seem to be going apace.
Nate, you’ll remember, was the CPF’s first certified superstar, bred in captivity, raised in Richmond Hill and famous for carrying a 30-gram transmitter that gave scientists a ton of valuable information about the migration and breeding and nesting patterns of young birds over several years.
Nate wintered in Colombia, eventually settled down at St. Lawrence Cement with Eva and raised two sets of chicks in 2003 and 2004. It was just about two years ago now that his body was discovered near the nesting site. Nate had been the victim of what was most likely an owl attack.
“You know, I’m still getting mail asking about Nate from Europe and Asia,” says an amazed Nash. “I’m just blown away by that.”
Maybe someday there will be another falcon superstar like Nate. If all goes well, he could be even a Lakeview lad.