By Ryan Nakano
On Tuesday April 11, a photo of a Peregrine Falcon found its way to the top of Golden Gate Audubon’s facebook feed with the text “First chick has hatched!”. At that moment, the Golden Gate Audubon staff hatched a plan.
The aforementioned peregrine, recently hatched chick, other peregrine parent and incubating eggs were only a walk away, resting atop the UC Berkeley campus Sather Tower Campanile. We walked from our new office on Allston Way over to the campus, spotting scope in hand and eyes to the sky.
Three quarters of the way up Campanile Way, one of the Peregrines (Annie? Lou?) swooped down on a crow directly in front of us, before circling and disappearing behind the Campanile. Making our way closer to the tower, we found ourselves circling as well, trying to relocate Peregrine Falcon parents, Annie and Lou. It was hatch day and our hopes were high. So much so, that in my own excitement, I mistook a human’s hand waving from inside the bell tower observation deck for our sought after peregrine couple. To the naked eye, everything can be a bird at the right distance.
Ending up on South Drive street, we trained the scope once again on the Campanile, and this time caught a Peregrine perched upon one of the four torch-like finials just above the bell tower. Of course, staring up from the ground below, we would never see the nest from such an angle. Fortunately, thanks to the Cal Falcons group and their partnership with the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), we had a backup plan!
Making our way back down Campanile Way, we turned one last time to peer up at the tower and caught sight of both Annie and Lou chasing away a Red-tailed Hawk, protecting their hatch site. What a reminder on Hatch Day that new life not only presents a feeling of hope but also an opportunity to commit to protecting those we love.
Descending onto a different scene around 12pm, we met a crowd watching a live feed from the Cal Falcons webcam on the colossal outdoor screen of the BAMPFA building.
Organized by Cal Falcons in partnership with BAMPFA, the 2023 Hatch Day Celebration was underway.
“It’s Hatch Day, so these peregrines are nesting on the campanile on campus and yesterday one of the chicks hatched and we’re hoping for a couple more today,” explained Cal Falcons organizer Mary Malec who had been tabling and answering questions about the falcons since 8:30 in the morning.
“It’s his (Lou’s) first time on the chick and he’s been really good about incubating,” Malec shared. “He was a little worried because the broken shell of the first egg was out too far so he pulled it in, he saw it as an egg and pulled it in to protect it.”
At this point in time there were three eggs left to be hatched. On-lookers watched the big screen like hawks, spotting movements of a leg, a couple feathers.
Malec, who was helping to educate the captive audience, said that there were many people who didn’t know it was hatch day and others who had no idea there were Peregrine Falcons nesting in the vicinity. Thanking Malec for answering our questions, and having found the hatch watch party, I wanted to know how everyone else was feeling about the inspiring event talking place.
“I think we saw this on Berkeleyside and we thought it sounded cool,” UC Berkeley student Rosa Murphy shared during her lunch break before class. “This was a great idea, it seems like there is a community that has come out to appreciate this livestream and it’s cute to be able to see the little baby falcon.”
Murphy’s friend Fiona Yim also chimed in “I feel like students on campus talk about the falcons in passing a lot but no one really knows their names or knows something is going on with them unless it’s for something big like this.”
And yet, there were plenty of other Berkeley students on Hatch Day who seemed to be following the falcon activity pretty closely.
“I’ve been watching them for a while and I also follow their (Cal Falcons) account on instagram so when they posted about the hatch day, I said ‘I must come here and watch them for a period of time’,” Biology student Cleo Lu shared. “It’s amazing to watch them on such a big screen. Because the screen was so big, we almost couldn’t tell which falcon it was up there.”
Lu’s friend and fellow Berkeley student Emily Banno shared her experience during the last Hatch Day event.
“They (Cal Falcons) did a hatch day last year and we were all crowded around someone’s laptop to look at the livestream, so this setup is way better,” Banno said. “Their laptop would die and then someone else would get their laptop out, it was a constant rotation.”
Other community members gathered, met up with their friends and appreciated the momentous event together as Annie and Lou did their thing.
Colleen Neff, who was in attendance, captured the feeling of onlookers and tried to make sense of the general excitement.
“I think it’s just (the hatching is) hopeful, I mean the pandemic was so grim and bleak and then to watch this nest, the nurturing taking place, the sitting on the eggs and the eggs hatching, we’ve all been gripped by it,” Neff said. “Our world got so small, it was just our home, our neighborhood, our birds, and then Fledge Day came and there were hundreds of people waiting for the first bird to fly and it was something we could all experience together safely.”
After a successful Hatch Day, our “in-field” meeting concluded and we returned to our work of inspiring others to engage in bird conservation.
Ryan Nakano is the current Communications Director for Golden Gate Audubon, a freelance journalist, amateur birder, and the author of poetry chapbook I Am Minor published by Nomadic Press.