WOODSTOCK — A peregrine falcon was sighted in the sky above Buck’s Ledge by Greenwood Select Board Chairman and avid hiker Amy Chapman on April 14.
For confirmation and on the advice of raptor specialist Erin Call of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, Marcel Polak played a recording of a peregrine falcon then heard the actual bird.
Fellow Woodstock Conservation Commission member Ed Rosenberg used an extremely enlarged photo from a camera with a 500mm lens to verify the distant nest.
Call said the trail to Buck’s Ledge was far enough from the nest that hikers would not disturb the birds. (It is likely there are two).
Nevertheless, in order to keep the endangered birds safe and undisturbed, members of the Woodstock Conservation Commission will be monitoring the area for the next few months. A distress call by the peregrines would be a cause for alarm.
“They will potentially dive-bomb intruders,” Polak said. “They get really upset.”
If distress calls are heard, the guidance is to leave the area quickly.
Polak and Emily Ecker led a hike on Saturday, April 22, that included monitoring the nest.
“On one hand, we want to celebrate these birds,” Polak said. “The flip side is we don’t want to attract the kind of attention that’s going to get people to go up there and disturb the bird.”
According to the Audubon Society website, the peregrine falcon is “one of the world’s fastest birds; in power-diving from great heights to strike prey, the peregrine may possibly reach 200 miles per hour. Regarded by falconers and biologists alike as one of the noblest and most spectacular of all birds of prey. Although it is found on six continents, the peregrine is uncommon in most areas; it was seriously endangered in the mid-20th century because of the effects of DDT and other persistent pesticides.”
On April 14, when Chapman was walking with her granddog, Eli the Wonder Pup, she heard “a bird shrieking loudly, close by,” she said. “I recognized it as the same kind of call I had heard in past summers while walking on the Mann Road below the ledge, when peregrine falcons had been known to be nesting there, most recently about four years ago.”
She added, “I saw a bird swooping back and forth in front of me, and I was able to pull out my phone in time to get a quick video. I’m no bird expert, but I was pretty sure it was a peregrine falcon.”
For 30 years, the falcons have been nesting at Buck’s Ledge but hadn’t been sighted over the past few years, Polak said.
Said Chapman, “I hope everyone who hikes there over the next few months will read and follow the recommendations on the informational posters at the trailheads and avoid disturbing them.”
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