With love in the air for Valentine’s Day and a new male companion frequenting the nest of a famous female falcon atop the UC Berkeley bell tower, a naming contest has been launched for the new suitor.
The Cal Falcons group of scientists and volunteers who monitor the birds and share photos and information about them on social media asked people Wednesday to recommend a name for the new beau seen around the nest of Annie, a peregrine falcon that has lived since 2016 in a nest on the Campanile bell tower, the third-largest bell-and-clock tower in the world.
Last April, a naming contest was held at UC Berkeley for three chicks that hatched atop the tower from a union between Annie and Lou, a male bird that replaced a former falcon father named Grinnell that was found dead in March 2022 after helping Annie make their home at the Campanile.
However, Lou has not been seen at the tower since early January — an article by the UC Berkeley media relations team says Lou had no identification bands and could have fallen victim to avian flu — and Annie has not been an empty nester for long, starting a courtship with her as-yet-unnamed paramour in recent weeks.
The Cal Falcons group says they are looking for names that are Cal-themed or have some sort of relation to the school or campus, and finalists will be selected from the top suggestions on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
Annie has raised 18 chicks on the bell tower, including one that flew away to make its home on Alcatraz Island. The hatching of the newest chicks last April inspired a party held at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, which showed a live webcam feed of the birds atop the tower as they came out of their shells.
