Sad and Sudden End to CVNP SR site

20230602 Difficult news to report at the CVNP/Rt. 82 Bridge/Station Road site, although we’ll try to keep it in perspective that we are bound to have some disappointments amid so many peregrine sites that have successfully paired and bred this season. After the building anticipation with the two chicks at this site becoming more viewable during feedings at almost three weeks of age, as of Wednesday, the nest was empty and Zara was only on site for a few minutes, and she wasn’t even close to the nest during a 3 ½ hour site observation. Checks on Thursday and today confirmed our concerns that the chicks were gone, and the adults have little reason to be around now. We’re not going to pretend that we’re not saddened by this, as we were looking forward to seeing a peregrine family being raised in this magnificent National Park environment, and the suddenness and unexplained disappearance makes it more difficult. We are left to hypothesize about what happened, and our suspicion is that the chicks were likely taken by Great-horned owls, which we know to be inhabitants of the park. Although Zen and Zara demonstrated that they were protective and highly defensive of the nest, the chicks were out in the open on this nest ledge and certainly vulnerable to night-time predators. We’re assuming that the adults were helpless against this adversary in the night. We’re posting this sad news first and will add a more uplifting post about the Hilliard site next. We also still plan to share some experiences that we’ve been fortunate to have had with Zen and Zara over the recent past, whether they stick around after this. Here's Zara feeding the nearly 3-week-old chicks on Tuesday, the last day that we had the privilege to see them...

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