The chat room was a flutter on Sunday, with two of the five eggs missing from the peregrine falcon nest.
A camera was placed with a nesting box on the Telus communications tower in Highland Green in late March and many people check it daily to see how the falcon family is doing.
Until Sunday at around 1 p.m. there were five eggs in the nest, but sometime on Sunday afternoon two of the eggs disappeared.
Judy Boyd, with the Red Deer River Naturalists, said there are pictures of just three eggs from around 3:30 p.m. She said on the chat room nobody seems to have seen what happened.
Boyd said when Gordon Court, provincial resource assessment specialist with Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, was in Red Deer on Friday he said it is very rare for peregrine falcons to lay five eggs.
She said he said he could only think of it happening twice and only in one of those instances did all five eggs hatch.
“We’re not thinking that somebody climbed up there and got them or anything like that,” Boyd said. “So probably what happened is (the peregrine falcon’s) seem to know that they’re not viable and they’ll get rid of them. So that is probably what has happened, but we’re not suspecting human intervention.”
Boyd said at times they tape what the falcons are doing, but they aren’t always taping what is happening at the nest so they won’t be able to go through footage to see what happened.
The tower where the nest is located is 95 metres up and protected by a fence and barbed wire. She said it is unlikely that someone tried to get up to it.
The Red Deer River Naturalists invested in the webcam while Telus provided the manpower for installation and pay for the power source. Alberta Fish and Wildlife invested in a new and improved nest box — one that will keep owls and ravens out.
The peregrines began to regularly enter the box on April 21, with the first egg arriving at May 1 and others following for a little over a week after that. Incubation started on May 9 and the eggs are expected to hatch starting on June 9.
To find out more or to watch the falcons go to the Red Deer River Naturalists website at www.rdrn.fanweb.ca or to the Red Deer Advocate website at www.reddeeradvocate.com.
sobrien@www.reddeeradvocate.com