Rob fills in for Matt Z at falcon banding ceremony at Weston power plant June 1, 2026.
KRONENWETTER, WI (WTAQ) — Following the ‘Newsworthy Names’ contest by Wisconsin Public Service, the peregrine falcon chicks at the Weston power plant now officially have their names and bands.
Matt Tweet was named in honor of WTAQ’s own Matt Z, and Matt Tweet was the first of the four to be named and banded.
When the peregrine falcon program first began, the bands were used to identify the falcons when they were seen in the wild. New this year, there are more ways to keep track of them.
“We added some small solar power transmitters,” said Wisconsin’s Peregrine Falcon Recovery Project founder, Greg Septon. “They can be picked up by the Terrasense system, the Motus system, which are two wildlife tracking networks, as well as the cellular network; like the Apple Air tag, so there’s three ways these birds could be identified.”
He says these new bands, called BluMorpho tags, are being used on an experimental bases right now and haven’t been used before the way they’re being used now.
A battery operated version was tried in Washington state last year on falcons, and was only tied to two systems instead of three.
Septon says their maps will be updated every five minutes.
“Right now, the only way to get into it is through the portal that I have to sign into and log into,” said Septon. “But we’d like to make at least the map portion public so the public can watch and see where the birds are going.”
The falcon became endangered in the 60’s due to the use of the DDT pesticide.
“They were limited by available habitat, which was the cliffs along the Mississippi River, the Wisconsin River, the Door Peninsula,” said Septon. “Well, today we’ve got all these human-built cliffs along the rivers and the lakes, and the peregrines have adapted to these sites where we provide nest boxes for them.”
Since the falcon program began in the early 90’s, over 465 peregrine falcons have been named and banded at company facilities — representing 20% of all peregrine falcons born in the state.
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