As spring comes to an end, the attention of Falcon fans continues to lean toward the top of the Briess Malthouse Tower in downtown Manitowoc.
Over the years, our Live Falcon Camera has provided followers a front-row seat to keep up with the young peregrines’ daily happenings, including egg laying, hatching, feeding, and development. Along the way, it’s become a popular resource for not only avid wildlife watchers, but also schoolteachers to show their classrooms, as well as the general public.
It’s also an important tool to learn about and restore peregrine populations across Wisconsin, led by Greg Septon, founder of the Wisconsin Peregrine Falcon Recovery Project. To date, there have been over 90 eyasses born in the nest box of the Manitowoc malthouse tower. Greg has banded well over 1,000 wild-produced peregrines throughout Wisconsin!
This past month, our reality TV stars were banded and named through our social media contest offered to followers across the country. We received over 320 submissions, and it was incredibly difficult to narrow them down.
The Briess voting panel weighed in to vote and below are the winning selections of the 2024 eyasses!
- Cloudy – Submitted by Tim Floros of Levante Brewing of West Chester, PA
- Loretta – Submitted by Erin Olsen of White Bear Lake, MN
- Prinz of Darkness – Submitted by Michael Sanders of San Francisco, CA
- David Peckham – Submitted by Megan Swartz of Rogers, MN
Thank you to everyone who participated in our annual naming contest! The winners will soon be sent custom coffee mugs with their falcon name and image on them, Briess malted milk balls, and other promo items. Congrats!
What does banding entail?
It all starts with a hard hat, leather gloves, and an empty animal carrier, as Greg, myself, and a few visitors ascend into the tall Briess malthouse tower. After Mom and Dad fly away, he grabs the precious cargo one by one into the carrier. Each one is tagged with a unique I.D. number and color bands for its gender (all blue bands, this year!). They may squawk a bit, but they’re in the hands of an expert and back in their nesting box within 20 minutes.
Briess Malt & Ingredients Complex, Manitowoc, WI
| Name | Sex | Project Band(L) | USFWS (R) | Banded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudy | Male | (b/blue) 65/v | 1126-16213 | 05/13/2024 |
| Peckham | Male | (b/blue) 66/v | 1266-25001 | 05/13/2024 |
| Prinz | Male | (b/blue) 67/v | 1266-25002 | 05/13/2024 |
| Loretta | Male | (b/blue) 68/v | 1266-25003 | 05/13/2024 |
By the end of summer, the four young will be registered with the Midwest Peregrine Society. Follow along here at Midwestperegrine.umn.edu/ and search the database for the young you’d like to follow the journey of.
