They are the highest flyers of them all. Barb and Boh are peregrine falcons, mated for life, and their roost is the 33rd floor ledge of the Transamerica Tower in Baltimore.
They welcomed their first egg of spring on the first day of spring, and you can see it all live! as it happens! by going to the webcam at https://explore.org/livecams/falcons/peregrine-falcon-chesapeake-conservancy
We'll wait while you go there and see the sights.
The Chesapeake Conservancy, a group of people dedicated to nature, has had a camera up there showing their falconry since 2015.
The building used to be called the USF & G Building, and then the Legg Mason building, and one day in 1978, someone who was probably supposed to be doing something work-related saw a pair of falcons setting up a home outside his/her window.
The Conservancy has done a lot to share the falcons' lives with us, and they even named these two for local favorites: National BOHemian beer, and former US Senator BARBara Mikulski.
They say that Peregrine falcons move faster than any other creature that roams the earth, with the exception of people who push their carts past me to get in line at the Giant. They fly and swoop at around 200 miles per hour, and for lunch will just have a pigeon that until a minute ago was flapping his wings around the courthouse sidewalk.
And they like to set up their homes on high cliffs, but will settle for a skyscraper downtown where the hipsters are.
And you know that old expression about "leaving the nest," right? Well, it's true. Falcons call their young "eyasses" (!) and Barb and Boh had a brood of four eyasses last year. One of them, Kalani, showed up on the upper floors of a tall building in Richmond. We don't know about about the other three, but I reckon at least one of them is wearing flannel shirts and a full long beard and trying to get his book of haiku published.
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