Thursday, 4:30 PM
29 stories above UMass Amherst, Peregrine falcons take roost
(Richard P. Nathhorst/UMass Amherst)
Three chicks with snow-white feathers crawled out of their eggs in early May in the nest atop the W.E.B. Du Bois Library.
By Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff
For 10 years, the same two Peregrine falcons have nested atop the main library at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, using the 29-story building like a cliff to dive for mockingbirds, robins, and pigeons.
Soaring up to 200 miles per hour, the grayish birds with the chain-mail pattern light and dark feathers on their chests use the campus like a buffet, snatching sparrows and starlings from grassy knolls and low trees. Each spring since 1998, hungry chicks have waited in their nest atop the W.E.B. Du Bois Library for their parents to fly home with supper.
This year, three chicks with snow-white feathers crawled out of their eggs in early May, drawing bird watchers to campus with binoculars and spotting scopes in what has become an annual ritual.
"They spend the summer on campus. They like the park-like environment," said Richard P. Nathhorst, a avian enthusiast who works at UMass developing science labs. "In the fall, they fly off for winter, to South America or the southeast coast of the US."
When Peregrine falcons were on the endangered species list in the mid 1990s, Nathhorst and officials from the state Division of Fisheries & Wildlife built a nesting box on top of the library. The gray box is open on one end and has a ledge that juts a few inches off the library roof.
The falcons first appeared in 1997, and the couple had their first chick the next year. Over the last decade, the nest has produced 15 Peregrines. The falcons are tagged and tracked after leaving the library, with some settling as nearby as Manchester, N.H., and another spreading its wings and flying as far as southern Colombia.
"We don't really name them," Nathhorst said with the joy of a doting parent. "But clearly these guys are UMass mascots. We are pretty proud of them."
