There’s another milestone in the effort to reintroduce the Peregrine Falcon into Iowa. A third nesting pair of the winged hunters has taken up residence in Lansing in eastern Iowa.Jodeanne Cancilla is the coordinator of the Macbride Raptor project in eastern Iowa. Cancilla says the birds in Lansing join Peregrine pairs already nesting in downtown nests on buildings in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines. The birds were once common in Iowa until being wiped out by pesticides. Cancilla says they recently discovered the female of the pair in Cedar Rapids was a young bird who grew up in Des Moines. She says that shows some of the birds are sticking around.Cancilla ran tests Thursday on four 29-day old chicks in the Peregrine nest in Cedar Rapids. They also marked the chicks to keep track of them.She says they’re building a genetic profile of the birds in Iowa and surrounding states.Cancilla says it doesn’t appear the birds in Lansing have any eggs or chicks. She says the crow-sized birds are a beautiful sight to see.The Peregrines are a state and federally-endangered species.
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