This morning between 8:45 and 9:25 at Red Rocks Park outside of
Morrison I observed the following Prairie Falcon mating behavior:
The female Prairie Falcon was sitting atop one of the huge red
boulders calling loudly and incessantly. I saw her yesterday evening
in the same spot calling loud and frequently. The male was sitting on
top of the much taller cliff face to the east , which is the cliff
where the nest will be located. Next the female flew to the nesting
ledge on the cliff face and disappeared into the recesses of the cliff
wall, which slants backward from the cliff face. She could still be
heard calling loudly and incessantly from the nest site, although I
could not see her. After a while, the female flew out of the cliff
nest site and landed on top of the south end of the cliff wall. The
male is still perched on the cliff wall, but approximately 100 yards
to the north of her location. The female continues to call, the male
takes flight and flies to the south where he disappears. A few
minutes later, the male returns flying in from the south, makes a
circle, and then in flight and from behind approaches the perched
female. Instead of landing on the cliff next to her(which is what I
was expecting), the male mounted the female without ever landing,
copulation took place lasting 5-6 seconds, and then the male
disengaged, and flew to the nest site ledge and disappeared into the
recesses of the nest site. The female continued to sit and call from
same perch. After a while the male had come out of the nest area and
could be seen perched on the ledge of the nest site. This is where I
left them about 10 minutes after witnessing the mating spectacle.
A couple of observation notes:
On Saturday when the DFO group witnessed copulation, the event was
very similar except that the male approached the female from behind
and from the south rather than behind and from the north. Also
copulation lasted much longer today, while on Sat. the event seemed
very brief.
Mike Henwood
Red Rocks Park - Morrison
Jefferson County
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Colorado Birds" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en?hl=en
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscribegooglegroups.com or
reply to this email with the words "REMOVE ME" as the subject.
