Tacoma Peregrines

In early 2000, six years after the discovery of the first nesting pair of Peregrine Falcons in Seattle, Roger Orness found a pair of courting Peregrines in Tacoma, Washington, on the 11th Street/Murray Morgan Bridge. In cooperation with Washington Department of Transportation, a nestbox was placed on the bridge by Bud Anderson. The pair nested there successfully from 2000 to 2006, fledging 22 young.

For a few tough years, however, the bridge-nesting Peregrines and WSDOT could not agree on who owned the bridge. Circumstances improved for the pair in 2012, when they moved from the bridge to a downtown building, nesting on the Key Bank Building, now Heritage Bank. Between 2012 and 2018, 23 young fledged from this site.

• 2018: Three fledglings were banded.
• 2019: No nest.
• 2020: Four eyasses hatched on May 1-2; falcon cam installed (see box).

Thanks to color-ID bands, we know that the adult male here fledged in 2004 from the 11th Street Bridge—at 16 years old, he’s had a fine run. He has been the resident male downtown for at least 2016-2018 and now 2020. And in 2018, one of his sons from 2016 turned up as the breeding male at the West Seattle Bridge.