Trackers may solve falcon mystery

Greg Septon, founder of the Wisconsin Peregrine Falcon Recovery Project, said there’s always been one question about the birds that’s haunted him.

Once he bands the peregrine chicks in spring, they typically disappear for two or three years. Then, when they begin to nest, sightings generally occur as people see the bands on their legs.

“Where do the birds spend the first few years of their lives?” Septon asked. “That’s my big, giant question. Do they go down to South America and come back to nest? We don’t know.”

He may be able to answer that question soon. That’s because beginning with this year’s hatchlings at We Energies power plants, Septon is placing tiny location transmitters on the bands he puts on each chick’s leg.

He placed transmitters on the three chicks he banded at the Port power plant on May 27.

He turned the devices on at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Septon said, and by noon he had received 16 locations for the birds.

“This is so exciting,” Septon said. “It’s very, very cool. This is something I’ve wanted to do for the last 20, 30 years.”

But it took until now for technology to catch up with that desire, he said.

The devices are about the size of the tip of his little finger, Septon said.

They are created on a 3D printer and include the tracker, a small antenna and a tiny solar panel that powers it, he said.

The tracker is placed on a blue-and-black band on the chick’s leg, with a dab of super gel to ensure it’s fastened.

The tracker is unobtrusive, Septon said.

“If you don’t look closely, you wouldn’t notice it,” he said.

The solar panel will power the tracker indefinitely, he said.

Location data from the tracker is picked up on Motus stations, which typically track wildlife, Terra Listens devices and, perhaps most significantly, smartphones and tablets. Septon can then track the birds using an app.

“The signal bounces from phone to phone,” Septon said.

He has put the trackers on 10 chicks this year — three at the Port and Oak Creek power plants and four at the Weston plant — and noted that he was concerned when he only received a couple of locations over the weekend.

When the number picked up on Monday and Tuesday, he realized it was because workers weren’t at the plants over the weekend so there weren’t as many phones picking up the signals.

“It sends the location in real time, which is so cool,” Septon said. “And I can go back months and see each location light up on the map.”

The location isn’t as precise as a GPS tracker, Septon said, but he doesn’t care.

“I want the big picture,” he said.

Peregrines are typically banded when they are 18 to 23 days old. They still have their downy coats, which will gradually be replaced by feathers.

The chicks will likely fledge in three weeks or so. They’ll typically stay in the area until they learn to hunt on their own, then leave.

In Port, Septon banded three chicks born to the power plant’s resident couple, a female who was never banded and her mate Hamm’s Solo, who was hatched in Milwaukee in 2023. This is the second year the couple has nested in Port.

Each of the chicks is given two bands — and now a tracker — and they are named. This year, We Energies’ chicks were named after Milwaukee television and radio news anchors. Port’s chicks were named Gino Falcone after Gino Salomone, Ted Perrygrine after Ted Perry and Flown Mercure for John Mercure.

The Port power plant has been the birthplace of 86 chicks since 2000.

The trackers, which are individually made to order, cost about $300 each, and the tracking program is $20 to $30 annually for each device. We Energies is picking up the cost, Septon said, so every chick born at its plants is getting the tracker.

This is an experimental program, Septon noted. He’ll be sending a report to the bird banding lab after the season and is forwarding his observations to the people who make the devices.

Septon, who said he heard about the devices last fall and immediately began the process to obtain them, said he’s hoping to continue the program.

“The plan is, if this works, to continue for at least several years,” he said.

It will likely take years to get enough reliable information from which to draw conclusions. That’s because 50% to 70% of the birds that hatch will die within the first year, he said.

And if all goes well, Septon may soon learn where peregrines go during those first few years. His money is on the idea they travel to warm cities in the South.

He noted that Pete the peregrine was born in Port in 2023 and found a year later in Nicaragua, and another bird hatched on the shores of Lake Superior was seen in winter in Austin, Texas.

“This, hopefully, will begin to give us answers,” he said.