City Hall Falcon Chicks Thriving, Getting Banded

UC Santa Cruz biologists banded four peregrine falcon chicks at San Jose City Hall on Wednesday after confirming the young birds were healthy. NBC Bay Area reported May 13 that all four chicks are male and were expected to remain in the nest for about six more weeks before fledging. The nesting site sits on a ledge on the 18th floor of City Hall, where the resident adult pair, Hartley and Monty, have been raising the brood under public view on live cameras. The work is part of a broader Bay Area monitoring effort run by the Predatory Bird Research Group at UC Santa Cruz. ### Why were the chicks handled now? May is the point in the nesting cycle when peregrine chicks are old enough to be examined and marked but not yet ready to fly. The City of San José says PBRG biologists enter the nest each spring to check chick health and place leg bands on the young birds so they can be identified later in life. Those bands also help viewers and researchers distinguish the chicks from one another as they grow on camera. ABC7 reported that researchers banded the San Jose chicks at about 8 a.m. on May 13. The station said each chick was also fitted with a radio transmitter attached to its leg, which it described as a first for the program, allowing researchers to remotely track movements and location. ### Who is watching the nest at City Hall? The City of San José says its falcon cameras have been operating since 2007 in partnership with the Predatory Bird Research Group at UC Santa Cruz. The current camera system, installed in 2024 with the Institute for Wildlife Studies, includes three feeds showing the nest, ledge and roof areas around the site. UC Santa Cruz says its Peregrine Falcon Monitoring Program relies on students and volunteer falcon observers across the San Francisco Bay Area. The group says it has been banding peregrine young and tracking their movements, survival and productivity for 25 years. ### Why does San Jose City Hall host peregrines at all? San Jose City Hall provides the kind of height peregrine falcons use for nesting and hunting. The city says the nest box is located atop a ledge on the 18th floor of the building. UC Santa Cruz says peregrines have increasingly moved beyond traditional cliff habitat to tall city buildings and bridges. The City of San José identifies the current adult pair as Hartley and Monty. According to the city’s falcon page, Hartley arrived at City Hall early in the 2023 season, and Monty arrived the same year as a second-year juvenile male. ### How does this fit into the wider Bay Area project? UC Santa Cruz describes the San Jose nest as one part of a regional monitoring network. The City of San José says more than 30 active nests in the San Francisco Bay Area are part of the PBRG peregrine monitoring program. ABC7 said the San Jose banding is part of a decades-long effort focused on the greater Bay Area. The station reported that researchers are using the program to follow how young birds disperse after leaving the nest and to keep watch on breeding activity across urban nesting sites. ### What can the public see next? The City of San José says the public can watch Hartley, Monty and the four chicks on three live falcon-camera feeds maintained with UC Santa Cruz. NBC Bay Area reported that the parents will continue feeding and protecting the chicks until they can fly and hunt on their own. In roughly six weeks, the next milestone will be fledging, when the young falcons begin making their first flights from the City Hall ledge. Volunteers and UC Santa Cruz researchers are expected to keep monitoring the nest during that period, using the bands — and, according to ABC7, the new transmitters — to follow the birds after they leave.