Days of the Peregrine
Maria Grace
The spring, we had a wonderful opportunity to share the story of one of NJ’s rarest residents, a pair of peregrine falcons as they attempted to raise a family through the Newspaper in Education Program in the Bergen Record. Through this program, we developed an 8 week educational activity series entitled, Days of the Peregrine that ran every Friday from April 18th to June 13th.
The Bergen Record’s Newspaper in Education Program (click here to see an example) provides over 14,000 newspapers a day to 1,000 teachers throughout Bergen, Passaic, Hudson, and Morris Counties. The program provides in-paper activities, such as Days of the Peregrine, and curriculum aids to help teachers and students use the paper effectively.
The peregrine falcon is one of our most charismatic wildlife residents. It also happens to be an endangered species here in New Jersey. The peregrine falcon is a raptor or bird of prey. It is at the top of the food chain, feeding on other birds such as pigeons, starlings, and sparrows. When hunting, it can reach speeds over 200 miles per hour, in a flying spectacle called a stoop. This behavior makes it the fastest animal on earth. A video of a falcon stoop can be seen on Youtube.
This amazing raptor lives in New Jersey, on bridges such as the George Washington Bridge, on platforms in the salt marshes of Barnegat Bay, on top of buildings in some of our biggest cities: Jersey City, Newark, and Atlantic City, and along the cliffs of the Palisades, a historic and natural nesting spot.
The most famous resident peregrine falcon pair lives at 101 Hudson Street in Jersey City. Every spring since 2003, Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey, in partnership with the NJ Endangered and Nongame Species Program, has used a live action webcam to allow viewers across the state, nation, and globe to witness the laying, incubating, hatching, and raising of peregrine falcon chicks. It is a wonderful opportunity to look into the lives of a wild animal living with us.
Our partnership with the Newspapers in Education program expanded our audience, connecting schools in Northern NJ with this extraordinary animal. Every Friday for 8 weeks, students learned about the peregrine falcon – its special adaptations for living in its environment, its life history, its place on the food chain and, the research being done to ensure its continued survival in our state. Students and teachers were encouraged to use the webcam as a tool for learning in the classroom. As students watched the webcam, they were encouraged to make observations and ask questions, acting like wildlife biologists – researching the animal, observing its behavior, asking questions, and coming up with answers to those questions.
Over the 8 weeks, students got an up close and personal look at the lives of a rare wild animal living in New Jersey. Students witnessed the incubating of four eggs. They saw the eggs hatching on April 28th and 29th. They followed the transformation of these chicks from helpless little white balls into mobile eating machines. Students also learned how cruel Mother Nature can be – harsh weather conditions caused the death of two chicks in early May.
Following the losses from the storm in May, the two remaining chicks continued to grow stronger each week – first shuffling around, then walking, then hopping and flapping as they transformed into the top predator nature ordained them to be. In the final week of the newspaper series, students witnessed the fledging of the 2 remaining chicks. As students were getting ready for the end of school and the freedom of summertime, the 2 remaining chicks at 101 Hudson Street were also getting ready for freedom, for their first flight into the skies over Northern New Jersey.
In support of the 8-week newspaper series, we facilitated a workshop for teachers at the Bergen Record’s Newspaper in Education Workshop at Giants Stadium. During this workshop, over 50 teachers engaged in discussions and activities about NJ’s wildlife. They learned a little bit about the incredible biodiversity that exists in our state and how to bring that biodiversity into the classroom. They also learned about some of the classroom tools that we can provide to further assist integrating New Jersey’s wildlife into classroom curricula.
The Newspaper in Education program allowed us to fulfill one of our key goals – to raise awareness for the endangered and threatened wildlife sharing our state. It was an effective way to engage teachers, students and readers of the Bergen Record and connect them with a rare wildlife species living among them. We hope to continue and expand this project to other newspapers in the future and continue to educate about the rare wildlife in our neighborhoods.
Staff
Margaret O'Gorman
Executive Director
Michael Davenport
GIS Specialist
Maria Grace
Education and Outreach Manager
MacKenzie Hall
Private Lands Biologist
Brian Henderson
GIS Specialist
Debbi Nichols
Executive Assistant
Todd Pover
Beach Nesting Bird Project Manager
Patricia Shapella
Director of Development
Larissa Smith
Assistant Biologist
Ben Wurst
Habitat Program Manager
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