Downtown Cedar Rapids home to two ‘miracle’ falcons

CEDAR RAPIDS — When Dave Conrads first heard about the four peregrine falcon eggs found atop the old U.S. Bank building in Cedar Rapids, he wasn’t too hopeful.

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The speckled brown eggs were scattered on a high ledge in an array that would have made simultaneous incubation near impossible, and their location near a small drain put them at high risk of disruption from recent rains.

“We were all thinking ‘There’s no way these eggs are going to hatch,’” said Conrads, director of the Iowa Raptor Project at the University of Iowa. “We had these four scattered eggs, and I just could not comprehend how any of them could make it.”

Still, Conrads and the rest of the Iowa Raptor Project team decided to give it a shot. They built an artificial nest tray for the ledge, gingerly relocated the eggs and cautiously celebrated when the mother took amicably to the surprise home renovation.

Within weeks, Conrads received some surprising news: Not one, but two of the eggs had hatched.

The chicks — which have grown into small, squawking balls of feathers — are now well on their way to adolescence in a survival story that Conrads said is not only a remarkable example of individual resilience, but also that of the species at large.

“I was completely stunned. I would have been shocked with one, let alone two,” he recalled. “Miracle is a strong word, but that’s really how it felt. It’s just befuddling to me that they were able to pull this off.”

Peregrine falcons: A comeback story

Peregrine falcons are crow-sized birds with salmon and black speckled chests, a dark colored cap and slate blue backs. The birds can fly up to 60 mph and reach 260 mph when diving, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

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Once populous and widespread across the mid-continent, peregrine falcons had all but disappeared from the eastern U.S. by the mid-20th century, and by 1970 the U.S. Department of Interior listed the species as endangered.

Iowa’s first Peregrine Falcon Restoration project started in 1989 when 23 falcons were released into the wild in downtown Cedar Rapids, but it wasn’t until 2002 that Iowa reached its goal of five nesting peregrines.

Thanks to continued and concerted conservation efforts, however, the species’ population has since begun to stabilize in Iowa and in 2024, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources was monitoring 17 nests.

Peregrine falcons have historically nested on cliff ledges, but they also have adapted to nest on human-made structures such as tall buildings and bridges. They tend to shirk the typical stick nests and instead create simple “scrapes” out of small depressions in gravel or similar debris.

In Iowa, that has led to some unique nesting sites including Cedar Rapids’ U.S. Bank building, the State Capitol building in Des Moines and the Dubuque County Courthouse.

“It almost brings tears to my eyes to think about now because it’s almost come full circle,” said Conrads, who assisted in the original Cedar Rapids peregrine launch in 1989. “From where we began to where we are today, you can really see the fruits of that labor” in these new nests.

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‘Bird bling’ helps conservation scientists

Part of those efforts include banding, a process by which a lightweight band is attached to a bird’s ankle to help with identification. By using the bands, scientists can learn more about birds’ life spans and migration patterns.

For example, Conrads said the team was able to learn that the chicks’ mother was born in 2018 in southwest Wisconsin based on the band placed on her ankle as a fledgling by the Raptor Resource Project, a Decorah-based nonprofit dedicated to avian conservation.

In another full-circle moment, the Raptor Resource Project and the Iowa Raptor Project then partnered this June to band the U.S. Bank fledglings with two sets of bands.

The first set was a standard aluminum marker with a federal identification number from the U.S. Geological Survey. Amy Ries with the Raptor Resource Project said the code is “sort of like the bird’s social security number” and can be used to identify the bird throughout its life.

However, the small size of that band and the length of the code makes a difficult means of identification at a distance. That’s why the chicks also got small colored bands with a shorter code that can be more easily spotted using a long-range scope or high-quality camera.

The banding process was fairly quick — about 20 minutes — to minimize the chicks’ time away from the nest. In addition to the banding, the crew also took the opportunity to identify the birds’ sex and learned both were male.

Once banding was complete and the birds had their “new bling,” the chicks were quickly returned to their nest where they’ll spend the near future until they learn to fly and strike out on their own ahead of the fall migration.

“I have high hopes for those two,” Ries said of the pair. “Pretty soon, they’ll go from being these adorable, confused-looking muppets to incredibly sleek, cream-and-brown predators, and they’ll be off.”

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