Celebrity downtowners Kate and Spencer are parents again, maintaining their high style from their 53rd-story digs while Atlantans wonder from below how they live so well.
The secret? Fresh air, exercise and plenty of raw bird.
Kate and Spencer, two rare peregrine falcons named after film stars Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy for their long-running romance, have three new additions at their terrace dwelling high atop Sun Trust Plaza. Outside the 53rd-floor offices of McKenna Long & Aldridge, a large planter box containing several small bushes provides an ideal nesting site to raise their three young hatchlings. It is the fourth brood produced by the couple, which mate for life.
Peregrines historically nested on remote cliff sites throughout the Appalachians, but now, the birds increasingly find skyscrapers, bridges or other large structures suitable habitat to hunt for food and raise young.
“Fledglings learning to hunt are like kittens,” said Georgia Department of Natural Resources biologist Jim Ozier. “They instinctively chase and attempt to capture whatever flies by, often starting with insects. From this, they quickly become adept at pursuing and killing pretty much any bird smaller than themselves.”
Because of eggshell thinning from pesticides and PCB poisoning, eastern populations of the peregrine were eliminated from the wild in the 1940s. The last known wild nest in Georgia was in Cloudland Canyon in the northwest corner of the state. Regulations on pesticides and protection of the birds have helped produce a slow comeback since they began being reintroduced nearly 40 years ago.
Since 1972, several hundred peregrines have been released across the eastern United States, including northeastern Georgia and even from the Georgia Power building.
There are as many as 450 pairs of peregrines currently in the eastern U.S., according to Ozier. Currently, there are only two known peregrine nests in Georgia, Kate and Spencer and another pair atop the Four Seasons in Midtown.
The birds can be seen flying around Peachtree Street, gathering food -- pigeons and unlucky songbirds -- for their young, which are now just leaving the nest. The public can also peek in for a live view.
A webcam, courtesy of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Wildlife Resources Division, The Garden Club of Georgia and McKenna, Long, & Aldridge LLP, gives a birds-eye view of the peregrines. Log on to http://www.georgiawildlife.com/node/615.
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