Hi Everyone -

The 2023 raptor breeding season at PINN is coming to an end, and I wanted to give everyone on update on how the season played out this year.

Prairie falcons (PRFA) and peregrine falcons (PEFA) have finished their breeding efforts for the year. We had a normal year for falcon occupancy and nesting with 9 PRFA pairs and 4 PEFA pairs, but nest success - with confirmed fledging of young - was low this year. Raptor advisories were lifted at the end of June and all climbing areas are open to visitors for the rest of the year. For more information, refer to the PINN raptor advisories page - and feel free to ask me for further clarifications.

For the 2023 season, PRFA and PEFA occupied nine and four territories respectively. For information on territory locations and rock formations, refer to Brad Young's climber's guidebook to Pinnacles.

PRFA and PEFA breeding efforts for 2023 are listed below:

• Resurrection Wall: PRFA pair, nest failed
• Egg / Teapot Dome: PRFA pair, nest failed
• South Balconies: PRFA pair, nest failed
• Crowley Towers: PRFA pair, 5 fledglings
• Willow Spring Slide: PRFA pair, nest failed
• South Chalone Peak: PRFA pair, nest failed
• North Chalone Peak: PRFA pair, 2 fledglings
• Drywall Slide: PRFA pair, non-nesting
• Gargoyle / Piedras Bonitas Cliffs: PRFA pair, 3 fledglings
• Little Pinnacles / Yaks Wall / The Hand: PEFA pair, 3 fledglings
• Hawkins Peak: PEFA pair, 3 fledglings
• General / North Balconies: PEFA pair, nest failed
• South Chalone Peak: PEFA pair, 1 fledgling

Unfortunately, falcon productivity was poor this year. Three PRFA nests produced 10 fledglings and three PEFA nests produced 7 fledglings. Five PRFA nest failures and one PEFA nest failure occurred during the egg incubation and nestling-rearing periods.

In addition to PRFA and PEFA, other raptor species confirmed breeding in the park this year included American kestrels, red-tailed and red-shouldered hawks, great horned owls, and Cooper's hawks.

Despite rather poor falcon productivity in 2023, there were still a number of successful nest efforts. Here are a few photo highlights from the season.

Raptor Photo Gallery

(all photos by Gavin Emmons - copyright 2023)

2023 Raptor Monitoring Photos (click images to enlarge) - All photos by Gavin Emmons ©2023
These are two prairie falcon nestlings, about 3 weeks old, sitting at a cliff cavity nest site next to an unhatched egg. Sometimes eggs fail to hatch if they are infertile or if the adults do not consistently and fully incubate all the eggs in their clutch. These nestlings went on to fledge successfully in 3 more weeks.	Great horned owl adult with nestling. Tree-nesting owl species at Pinnacles do not build their own stick nests - they use sites previously built by other raptors, in this case an old stick nest used by red-tailed hawks in a previous year.
This is a Cooper's hawk female that nested successfully at a different nest site at Pinnacles this year - she also successfully fledged 3 young. Note that her coloration is different than the Cooper's hawk female in the previous image - she has red eyes, gray crown, consistent reddish barring on her breast and belly, indicating an older adult that is at least a third-year bird.	This is a Cooper's hawk female that successfully nested and fledged 3 young from a nest site this year. Her coloration (yellowish eyes, brown coloration on back and head) indicate she was likely a young adult that probably hatched herself just last year, with this being the first year she attempted to nest and raise young.

This year several people assisted throughout the breeding season with raptor monitoring at Pinnacles - Mike Baird, Joseph Belli, Kaitlin Lopez, Idangie Sein, Katherine Bright, and Megan Gnekow. All of them have been invaluable in confirming raptor status at the park - thanks so much for your efforts!

Thank you to all the staff who have continued to provide me with raptor observations; every detail on raptor behavior helps to provide a more complete picture of raptor breeding at the park. If anyone on staff wishes to report raptor or other observations, I would greatly appreciate it if you please email me details of observations including species, date, location, and times. Your reports help us comprehensively track raptor activity at the park over the years.

If you have any observations within the park to report, or any raptor-related questions, please contact me via email or extension 4279. Thanks!