Falcon keeps an eye on things

Birders from the Cofrin Center for Biodiversity have been training their scopes toward the roof of the Cofrin Library in recent weeks, with multiple peregrine falcon sightings on the UW-Green Bay campus. Amateurs are enjoying the occasional sighting, as well. This smart-phone snapshot of a resting falcon — we think it’s a peregrine based on size and its prominent “sideburn” facial markings — was taken Tuesday afternoon (Jan. 14) through an eighth-floor hallway window just outside the Provost’s Office suite, Room 835. The bird perched, mostly motionless, for several hours during the lull in the day’s snowfall.

Campus ornithologists are hopeful this will be the year a falcon pair colonizes the library roof and nests successfully. In previous years the University had installed a rooftop nesting box, and observers also documented at least one unsuccessful attempt several years ago.