Population bottleneck

Well hello! Are you still a baby? Must be that time of year again.

Cute little thing. Finally managed to find the one yard that didn’t have a dog to bark at it–I’d been wondering what critter their voices had been chasing around the last week or so.

On a different note, bird flu has decimated the peregrine population: they’re talking about DDT-era levels in some parts. The Berkeley Campanile Tower birds are gone, seven Bay Area nests out of ten being monitored by one biologist no longer have a pair defending their territory, and not only that, the usual floaters, ie single ones looking for a mate and a place to claim who would normally happily settle right into such an opening–they’re not there either.

And yet there’s our pair on San Jose City Hall. They’re doing all they can to get the egg laying started soon.

This is about the point where the previous male succumbed last year (or was it 2023?) and a yearling floater took over. Hoping for their resistance to the virus and into the next generations.