By Khalida Sarwari and Laura Dudnick
Three eggs belonging to celebrity peregrine falcon Clara have hatched this week in their nest on a ledge atop San Jose City Hall, and a fourth is expected to hatch any day, a city spokeswoman announced today.
The first egg hatched at about 8 p.m. Monday, followed by two more between 8 p.m. and early this morning, city spokeswoman Michelle McGurk said.
“She is doing great,” McGurk said of Clara, who laid her first egg of the season March 12.
The city will hold a contest in the upcoming days for children to name the three chicks.
Clara and her current mate Esteban Colbert are available for viewing on the FalconCam, a live streaming video of the falcon’s nest on a City Hall ledge 18 stories above the street.
The “falcon reality show” made Clara famous beginning in the spring of 2006, when employees at City Hall noticed Clara and her former mate, named Jose, on a ledge atop the 18-floor building, according to McGurk.
The Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group placed a nest box on the south end of the City Hall tower later that year. In early spring of 2007, Jose and Clara were again regularly observed together in the area, McGurk said.
By late March, the birds had laid three eggs in the nest box, according to McGurk.
The eggs all hatched successfully on April 28, and after a contest in June 2007, the young birds were named Hiko, Spirit and Esperanza, McGurk said. They were banded with identification bands and eventually found their own homes.
Their father Jose was not seen after July 2007. Falcons typically mate for life, and birdwatchers were concerned for Jose’s disappearance, according to McGurk.
Clara, however, had found a new mate by January 2008, McGurk said. He was named Carlos because he frequently perched on the Marriott Hotel on San Carlos Street. On March 13, 2008, Clara laid the first egg of the falcon season.
Three more followed over the next several days, according to McGurk.
Three of the eggs hatched April 22 and were named Cielo, Meyye and Mercury. The fourth never hatched and a biologist monitoring the falcons said the egg may never have been fertile.
Mercury and Meyye were frequently spotted throughout downtown San Jose during the summer of 2008, and have since made off for territories of their own. Their sister Cielo died after flying into a building, McGurk said.
Esteban Colbert, named for Comedy Central star Stephen Colbert, became Clara’s third season mate, according to McGurk.
The FalconCam can be accessed online at http://sanjose.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?publish_id=91.