Rockford’s Peregrine Falcons

Our Nest Cam is focused on Rockford’s only known pair of breeding peregrine falcons.

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The Nest Location in Downtown Rockford

In 1930, the famous architect Jesse Barloga designed the Rockford Register News Tower at 99 East State St., which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was built as an homage to the Tribune Tower in Chicago. Originally planned as an eight-story plant and 13-story tower, it was downsized due to the Stock Market Crash. At the top of the tower, the “Lantern of Liberty” symbolizes the importance of free press as part of our Constitutional rights.

Louise choses to lay her eggs in a drainage channel on the building’s exterior on the eighth floor. Nest sites in the wild usually are on cliff ledges. In urban areas, they often use building ledges or even bridges. No actual nest is built with twigs or sticks, but the eggs are laid in a simple scrape. The scrape is a small depression made in the pea gravel or ground material by pushing their feet backward to dig out a little low area.