Green Bay Peregrine Falcons Will Soon Need New Home

Wisconsin Public Service says three Peregrine falcon eggs have been laid in a nest box at the utility’s Green Bay building.

Since 1996, WPS, a subsidiary of the WEC Energy Group Inc., has had nest boxes for Peregrine falcons at the Pulliam Power Plant in Green Bay and at the Weston Plant in Rothschild. But the Pulliam Power Plant is scheduled to be decommissioned in fall.

Since 1996, company spokesman Matt Cullen said 117 chicks have been born in the nests. He said the company is trying to find another tall building the raptors might find to their liking.

“We’re currently working with some of our customers to try and find an alternative site for that nest box at the Pulliam Power Plant,” Cullen said. “Our hope is to be able to relocate that nest box to another building in the same area as our power plant.”

In cities, falcons like to nest on tall buildings where they feed on pigeons. In nature they gravitate toward cliffs near bodies of water so they’re near prey such as songbirds and waterfowl.

With the looming plant shutdown in Green Bay, Joshua Martinez, a wildlife biologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, says the falcons will probably stick around until the building is razed.

Martinez said after that, the falcons will most likely find somewhere else to live.

“They may move to another location in the city of Green Bay or they may move on to another whole area of the state,” he said.

He said another pair is nesting atop the nearby Cofrin Library on the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay campus.

“Last year they had their first successful nest with fledglings so we had two pairs breeding successfully here in the City of Green Bay last year,” said Martinez. “So they’re honing in on a new type of area, a very large, tall building here along the lakeshore so they do very well.”

Martinez said Peregrine falcons are a great attraction for bird watchers because they dive bomb their prey sometimes out of mid-air.

“They are one of the fastest birds in the entire world and an amazing bird just to watch,” he said.

Martinez said there are at least eight breeding pairs of Peregrine falcons in northeastern Wisconsin.