Peregrine Falcon Project

It all started early in the nesting season shortly after we posted on the discussion board and several falcon fans visited our web site ~ Juanita Woods made the suggestion on the board that the "San Diego 9" (as we have come to be called) be allowed to name the babies this year. Way back on page 17 of the forum:

Posted by Juanita Woods on 03-20-2003 11:38 PM:

RHES Room 22
I think it would be nice to allow the RHES Room 22 students to name the Terminal Tower chicks this year. I think it's fantastic they are posting on this board!!

Cecilia Hartman, the Business Manager for APK, the company that provides and maintains the falconcam, and the moderator of the board, wrote a letter on our behalf to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources making the following request:

Posted by Cecilia on 03-21-2003 02:34 PM:
Naming of the TT falcon chicks
I have sent the following letter to the appropriate people at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife:

I realize this is a case of counting the chickens before they hatch, but I would like to make a request regarding the naming of the Terminal Tower falcon chicks this year. There is a group of nine 4th grade students in San Diego CA that has taken on the falcons as a research project. They are doing this completely on their own and not as a part of their regular studies. They have created a terrific web site:
http://powayusd.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/tea...lcons/intro.htm and created a very interesting observation log:
http://powayusd.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/tea...bservations.htm
I think it would be wonderful if these children were given the opportunity to name the falcon chicks from Terminal Tower.
Please give this serious consideration.

Cecilia's efforts were greatly appreciated by us, and also by fans on the board ...

Posted by Juanita Woods on 03-21-2003 04:00 PM:

AND A BIG THANK YOU ALSO TO CECILIA!

Cecilia, thank you so much for sending your request to "the powers that be" on behalf of our wonderful school children in San Diego! That would be a wonderful addition to their research project to be given the opportunity to name the chicks. Besides everything else that you do for all of us old-timers on the board, you are absolutely the most wonderful board moderator we could have by doing this little extra for our California friends!

Of course, we were 33 days from hatch so the thought was put on the back burner for awhile ..... until April 25th when the first baby arrived. Again, Cecilia made the same request to ODNR, for us to be allowed to name the eyases.

On April 30th I received an email from Mr. Bill Beagle, Public Information Specialist for the Division of Wildlife. In his email he stated, "...we are moving toward giving your students the opportunity to name at least one of the chicks if not all of them." Mr. Beagle had some suggested guidelines for us:
1. Submit 10-15 names well in advance, the week before.
2. Submit non-gender specific names (because it is difficult to tell if they are male or female).
3. At least one of the names carry some relevance to Ohio since this is their point of origin. (He gave us a hint ~ this is Ohio's bicentennial year.)
4. Obvious names are worn out ~ there are already two Buckeyes, and the professional sports teams have been used as well.

Mr. Beagle thought it would be a good challenge for the students ~ and it was!

We decided to submit names in triads ~ 3 names that went together ~ in the hopes they would choose a set of names and we would therefore name all 3. On May 7th, a week before "banding day", we submitted the following sets of names and our reasoning:

NAMES

A = Applause
P = Praise
K = Kudos

Taft
Speck
Jones

Hope
Destiny
Freedom

Chilli
Zane
Colombo

Cal
Goldie
Poppy

Swift Wings
Lofty
Speedy

REASON

These start with the letters in APK, to company that makes the falconcam available to all of us.

The current Governor of Ohio
Current Director of ODNR
Current Director of Environmental Protection Agency

First Lady of Ohio, Hope Taft
A falcon name from Frightful's Mountain
Bicentennial year ~ and these 3 also speak to the plight and future of the peregrine

First State Capital - Chillicothe
Second State Capital - Zanesville
Current State Capital - Columbus

for California
The Golden State - CA state motto
CA state flower

after Mom - SW
falcons fly high
falcons are the fastest bird

On May 8th we received the "official" word from Mr. Beagle ~ this honor came in the form of a forwarded email:

From: William Beagle [SMTP:beag@worldnet.att.net]
To: Harvey, Lynne
Subject: Fw: Naming of Falcon Chicks
Sent: 5/8/2003 12:25 PM

It's official....

From:   Carole Y. Talbert[SMTP:CTALBERT@WALTERHAV.COM]
Sent:     Thursday, May 08, 2003 12:37:37 PM
To:   bill.beagle@dnr.state.oh.us
Subject:     Naming of Falcon Chicks

Bill,

We've decided to let the San Diego school children name the chicks this year. They have done such a great job on the web site, and have shown such enthusiasm toward their project, it only seems fitting that they should do the honors.

Would you like to inform the appropriate parties, or would you prefer that I do so?

Carole

As we understand it, and according to Mr. Beagle, "The actual selection [of the names] is done by Father Falcon, Dave Scott, our lead biologist on this project, second in command for wildlife around the state. Dave is the final authority."

So now we wait ... until banding on Thursday, May 15, at 10:00 EST to see which names are selected.