General

Chicks get bands – and names are next

We have two more falcon sisters! 

Raptor banding volunteers visited North Omaha Station last week to band, weigh and measure this year’s peregrine falcon chicks. They determined that Lewis and Clark produced two healthy female chicks this year. 

OPPD’s Jeremy Kellner and volunteer bander Jerry Toll retrieved the chicks from their nest amid loud, angry protests from their protective parents. Lewis and Clark swooped toward Kellner and Toll, squawking as they flew, as they tried to scare away the visitors. 

Toll and fellow volunteer bander Kellie Hayden completed the banding, and a third volunteer, Kris Hammond, assisted as well. 

Personalities of their own

The chick that hatched first weighed 1.79 pounds with a wing chord measuring 7.3 inches. Like many of her feisty older siblings, she loudly expressed her displeasure with the entire process. 

Her younger sister, who hatched a few days after her, weighed 1.59 pounds with a 6.5-inch wing chord. She was noticeably calmer as volunteers assessed her. 

Female peregrine falcons are typically larger than males; the chicks’ weights helped confirm that both are female.  

That initial weight isn’t always a perfect predictor, though – Clark was so named because observers at the time believed she was a male, based on her weight when she was banded.  

Both chicks are healthy, thriving and already developing strong personalities.   

A long line of falcons 

The banding process also helps researchers identify them in the future and continue monitoring peregrine falcon populations. 

The bands are how we know that two of the chicks’ siblings returned to Nebraska this year.   

Ohm, who hatched in 2022, joined Clark at the nest in the second half of February, spending time with his mother until his father arrived March 5. Another sibling, Storm, a female falcon hatched in 2020, has taken up residence at Nebraska City Station this year.  

Lewis and Clark were born at the Nebraska State Capitol in 2012. The two settled into the box at North Omaha Station in 2015, and produced and raised 10 surviving chicks: Storm, Flicker, Flash, Volta, Watt, Ohm, Ampere, Thunder, Lightning and – after losing all of their offspring in 2023 and 2024, Beak Randby in 2025. Now they have an even dozen. 

Cast your vote

And soon, this year’s chicks will get names, too.  

Keep an eye on OPPD’s Facebook page – we’re launching a contest this week and you can vote to help choose their names. 

In the meantime, you can keep up on their antics via their livestream on YouTube. 

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