The team monitoring a pair of peregrine falcons living on top of the Sheraton Hotel says they have seen an egg, setting a new record for the earliest sighting from a couple in downtown Hamilton in a given year.
The Hamilton Community Peregrine Project (HCPP) states that McKeever and Judson revealed an egg just a few days ago, surpassing the 2020 record for the earliest sighting in a mating season.
“Most of the time we still can’t see it. In some photos we can see just a glimpse of brown. In others it is not visible at all. But it is there,” watchers wrote in an update on Sunday.
The falcons made their home on a ‘scrape’ at the Sheraton in early 2022, which has been a nesting spot for the species over the past 29 years.
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Charles Gregory / Hamilton Falcon Watch / Facebook
McKeever arrived in the Hamilton area in January 2022, shortly after the death of Lily, the hotel ledge’s previous resident female, the same month.
Judson, McKeever’s mate, arrived in Hamilton from Buffalo at the end of the nesting season in 2021 and the pair had four chicks during that mating season.
They had another four chicks born in late April of last year named Kirkendall, Gibson, Stipley and Delta.
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Charles Gregory / Hamilton Falcon Watch / Facebook
Falcon eggs usually hatch 30 to 34 days after being laid by a female, according to the Canadian Peregrine Foundation.
If the incubation is successful, the new chicks could be seen as early as the last week of April.
