It’s falcon season in Manitowoc and across Wisconsin as part of the Peregrine Falcon Recovery program.
The program has been very successful since being launched back in 1992.
Ron Schroder, Director of Marketing at Briess Malt & Ingredients Company, said Briess has a nesting box on the 11th floor of the grain elevator at the malt plant downtown.
“Every year in February, a couple of falcons show up and normally the eggs are laid in March and then the chicks hatch around Mother’s Day,” he explained. “This year, we’re a little bit ahead of schedule. And it looks like the eggs will probably hatch the first week of May.”
Schroder explained there are four eggs currently in the nesting box and, the public can follow the progress on “Falcon Cam” found on the Briess website.
Just go to briess.com and you can click on the ribbon along the top and you’ll see falcon cam and that’s live 24 hours a day.
Schoder tells us that “once the eggs start to hatch it usually takes about 48 hours for all the chicks to be born.”
A baby falcon is called an eyas and since a nesting box was installed on the grain elevator in downtown Manitowoc in 1998, a total of 83 eyases have been born here.
Schroder says, “We’re glad to be contributing to the Wisconsin Falcon Recovery program across the state.”
Peregrine falcons can fly and dive at speeds of about 200 mph and are the only birds to catch their prey in the air.
