Two peregrine falcon chicks hatched earlier this spring in a nesting box on top of North Quad — and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, has asked the U-M community to help name them.

Suggest names by filling out this online form. Submissions will be accepted until June 4. Winners will be announced Monday, June 9, via the University Record.

Asking the public to help name new chicks has been a recent tradition in Ann Arbor, and chosen monikers often pay tribute to U-M and the Ann Arbor community. Chick names from the past decade include Ann (Arbor), Jim (Harbaugh) and Lloyd (Carr) — and three chicks born in 2014 were named Mary, Sue and Coleman in honor of former U-M president Mary Sue Coleman.

Earlier this month, DNR applied a tracking band to each of the chicks to enable the gathering of information, such as migration patterns and population growth. According to a spokesperson for the DNR, the chicks’ parents are not banded so cannot be definitively identified — but they were “very vocal and protective while the banding occurred.”

In urban areas, where there are no cliffs or mountains, peregrine falcon pairs often nest on tall buildings, making North Quad’s rooftop an attractive option. Three unhatched, nonviable eggs were also present in the nest and collected for possible future analysis. 

The DNR has advised the public that if they come across a chick on the ground, which can happen as the chicks are learning to fly, to contact the DNR Southeast Michigan peregrine falcon nest coordinator at 989-313-0283.

The peregrine falcon has been removed from the federal endangered-species list, but remains an endangered species in Michigan.