OUTDOORS: EL NINO SPURS EARLY ARRIVAL OF PEREGRINES
MIKE SAJNA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com
03/11/98
(Copyright 1998)

Chalk up another one for El Nino.

For years, almost like clockwork, peregrine falcons have been returning to nest on the Gulf Tower in Downtown Pittsburgh within a day or two of April 1. This year, though, thanks to the region's mild winter brought on by El Nino, the birds already are back in the city and on the nest.

"The peregrines are a month early in incubation. They're sitting on eggs," said Dan Brauning, the Game Commission biologist who works with the peregrines.

The falcons' arrival was so unexpected that the Game Commission never had a chance to erect a video camera near the nest. For the past few years, a closed-circuit camera near the nest has provided live coverage of the peregrines on a television in the lobby of the Gulf Tower and on the Internet.

Because the birds are incurbating eggs, Brauning has told agency personnel to not work near the nest until the chicks have hatched.

"As much as I would like people to see them, it would be too risky," he said about setting up a camera. "It would disturb the birds too much."

El Nino and the mild winter also have caused eagles around Pennsylvania to nest earlier than normal, according to Brauning.

"We had five or six, maybe more, eagle nests that were active, on eggs, in February," he said. "I've seen them nest that early before, but that was the exception."

Brauning is not concerned about a cold snap harming the peregrine or eagle eggs. The birds can handle the cold, he says, but they could be harmed by a freak storm that dumps a foot or more of snow on the nests.

Fishing forecast

Thanks to the mild weather, Western Pennsylvania anglers appear to have done fairly well again over the weekend. However, the return of cold weather has slowed fishing considerably and it's not expected to pick up again until the weather improves.

According to reports coming into the Fish and Boat Commission's Southwest office, trout were being caught in the delayed harvest artifical-lures-only projects on Laurel Hill Creek in Somerset County and Loyalhanna Creek in Westmoreland County.

The best fish reported to the Southwest Region was a 5 ½ -pound brown trout out of the tailrace of the Youghiogheny Dam in Fayette County. Region manager Tony Murawski said his office received an anonymous call about the fish and he had no other details.

Cambria County Waterways Conservation Officer Chris McDevitt reported two 20-inch chain pickerels caught in Glendale Lake.

"The chain pickerels are kind of unsual," Murawski said. "We don't have a lot of chain pickerels in the southwest, but Glendale has always had them. They also got an 18-inch bass up there and some pretty nice bluegills."

Allegheny/Armstrong Waterways Conservation Officer Jerry Greiner found four blue trout among the fish stocked in Deer Creek last week. Blue trout are "mutant" rainbow trout, according to Murawski. They have a bluish back and white lower body.

"They don't breed or reproduce," Murawski said. "Normally, we don't stock any. They just keep them in the hatcheries for show. They don't get that many, but there were four that Jerry saw in the load. They were 16 inches or so. The guys were pretty excited about them."

Fishing in the northwest region began to "sour over the weekend" and turned off with the arrival of snow, according to Gary Dieger, manager of the Fish and Boat Commission's northwest region.

"We had some real good fishing in a lot of locations before the snow," Dieger said. "The tributary streams and Lake Erie were doing well. Kinzua Dam was doing well."

Dieger said that in the past couple weeks, a 50-inch, 30-pound muskie and a 15-pound brown trout were caught in Kinzua Dam.

Fishing in Pymatuning Reservoir, meanwhile, has remained slow. "I think as soon as we get the next break in the weather that we can probably look for walleyes and muskies to start (hitting) in Pymatuning," Murawski said.

Fishing for walleyes, muskies, saugers and northern pike will close at midnight Saturday, except in Pymatuning Reservoir where fishing for walleyes and muskies is open year-round.