Falcons lay eggs in nest. Eagles lose one. And what happened to Flash and Elaine?
SOUTH BEND — The peregrine falcon nest atop the downtown County-City Building bears two brown eggs that could hatch in the next month. As viewers can see through a live in-nest camera, they are being nursed by at least one newcomer to this wooden box.
That comes with both some sad and hopeful news for two of the nest’s prior occupants.
Meanwhile, the bald eagles nest at St. Patrick’s County Park has suffered one loss.
Here’s what we know.
Two eggs are seen in the bald eagle nest at St. Patrick’s County Park in South Bend through the University of Notre Dame camera on Monday, March 24, 2025.
What’s up with the eagles nest?
The eagles nest at St. Patrick’s has gone from three eggs, laid in late February, to just two now. One of the eggs from the nest broke on Friday, March 21, and it appeared to be unviable (not ever going to hatch), according to Brett Peters, who monitors the live in-nest camera for the University of Notre Dame.
The two other eggs at St. Patrick’s still have a chance to hatch in late March or early April.
Whatever happened to Flash?
As for the falcons, Tribune fans will be sad to hear that Flash, the male who fathered chicks in 2023 and 2024, was found dead on a road in northwest Indiana in August 2024. He apparently was brought to an animal hospital in Porter County, Ind.
The male peregrine falcon, Flash, checks on the remaining egg in the South Bend nest in spring of 2022.
We learned this from Mary Koher, a volunteer with Soarin’ Hawk Raptor Rehabilitation Center north of Fort Wayne. She said the center has been tracking Flash’s whereabouts since he was born from falcon parents in downtown Fort Wayne’s nest.
She confirmed Flash’s fate with a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.
Flash first appeared in the South Bend nest in 2022, showing up in a sort of mating (or love?) triangle. Peace, the male for the prior four years, didn’t show up that spring as Flash took over. And the returning female, Maltese, found an intruder female who was trying to take over after Maltese had laid her eggs.
None of the eggs in 2022 hatched. But two chicks hatched in both 2023 and 2024, all four of them the offspring of Flash.
Whatever happened to Elaine?
Indiana Audubon Executive Director Brad Bumgardner bands the female peregrine falcon chick, Elaine, in the mechanical room at the top of the County-City Building in South Bend on Wednesday, May 24, 2023.
Elaine, who was Flash’s daughter and one of the falcon chicks that hatched in 2023, has been trying to carry on his legacy on two fronts.
Elaine has been found as an adult visiting two different nest boxes in 2024 and currently this year. One of those nests is on Great Spirit Bluff overlooking the Mississippi River near La Crescent, Minnesota, and the other is across the river and a few miles away on the U.S. Bank building in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Bird camera watchers at the Bird Cams Around the World have been tracking Elaine’s appearances at both nests.
Who’s in the South Bend nest now?
Bird camera watchers at BCAW report that the male in the South Bend nest is banded (C/78) but unnamed. He was banded in 2022 at a nest at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, where he apparently hatched. That makes him a newcomer.
The female in the nest is unbanded and likewise is unnamed, just as last year’s female was.
When will the eggs hatch?
Experts have said that it typically takes 28 to 32 days for eggs to incubate before they hatch. In South Bend’s case, that depends on exactly when these eggs were laid.
For comparison, last year’s eggs were laid between March 21 and 25, then hatched on April 27 and 28.
How do they identify these falcons?
The news about both Flash (banded as M/52) and Elaine (U/09) were confirmed because of the banding that regularly was done on South Bend’s falcon chicks. Their numbers go into a database that alert bird watchers can track as the raptors appear elsewhere.
See story and photo gallery: Two South Bend falcon chicks banded and named. Welcome, Skip and Elaine.
But the nearly annual banding in South Bend stopped in 2024 because the state started to pull back on funding for it, likely because of new priorities since falcons had improved on Indiana’s list from “endangered” to “special concern” in 2013, according to Brad Bumgardner, executive director of the Indiana Audubon Society.
Find columnist Joseph Dits on Facebook at SBTOutdoorAdventures or 574-235-6158 or jdits@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Falcons lay eggs in South Bend nest eagles lose one in Notre Dame camera
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