Here's the translation:
Fight settled?
Martin Vink, Vogelwerkgroep Gemert | Monday, March 12, 2018 Like | Keep this blog | 8x
In the past two days, an invasion of strange falcons around the De Mortel tower has been observed. These intruders try to dislodge or even kill the current male and female. What has happened so far?
Vwg Gemert
The current female V and the male M are already well advanced in the court, many copulations have been observed and the female is almost ready to hit the egg tray. She was more and more often seen in the nest box for a longer period of time.
However, on Sunday 11 March, several peregrine falcons appeared on the battlefield and late in the afternoon Karin Groen-Dam filmed an attack / battle between two peregrine falcons. For the images, see this link:
https://youtu.be/oPX60CMYarMAs can be seen on these images, both peregrine falcons caught together at the back of the tower fall down.
From this moment on, the current female V, as far as my information stretches, is no longer observed in and around the nest box. Given the strength of the attack, it is plausible that the attacked peregrine falcon was almost immediately killed by the intruder. Peregrine falcons are real insects, they surprise their prey by attacking them with great force. During the impact, there is so much energy transfer that breaks the spine and the prey becomes defenseless.
They often attacked by biting the prey / competitor in the neck, causing the neck vertebrae to break and death to occur.
But was the attacked peregrine falcon the current female V?
Today a strange ringed female was seen several times in and around the nest box. This female has a silver-gray leg ring and a colored orange leg ring with possibly the combination YC.
Orange leg rings have been used for Dutch birds until 2014. From 2014 we use gray with three letter combinations. For the roof camera the ring code YC was clearly visible with some certainty. With this shot we also looked from above on the fourth ring for a dead / wounded peregrine falcon. What we already expect, we found a dead peregrine falcon. After zooming in the falcon appeared to have no rings, could it be the current female V?
In order not to disturb the falcons, tonight, I carefully stepped up the fourth ring after 20:00 and removed the dead falcon. The female falcon encountered had a lot of injuries in her neck indicating the completion of the lethal attack by the intruder. My suspicions that this is the current female V, I can confirm with some certainty despite the injuries and affected plumage.
Given the position of the attack and the location, it is plausible that the attacked falcon in the film is the same falcon.
What now?
As in previous territory battles in the breeding season have shown, there is still a small chance that a brood can still be raised. The male M will then have to enter into a pair bond with a new female, or in view of the number of peregrine falcons around the tower and the associated disruptions is still possible in the coming weeks. It is even possible that the current male M himself will also be chased / killed because a strangely unguarded male has also been observed.
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