Field Notes Doug Bell April 6, 1988 of a controlled environment. Matt showed Todd & I the dummy eggs - they are an epoxy-base replica - weigh exactly as much as the real thing (very important! otherwise the falcons abandon them), and are colored similarly. If all goes well, the Peregrine Fund people will put 2 chicks back in the scope in about 3 1/2 weeks. They always use 2 dummy eggs for the switch. Matt has a Peregrine Fund incubator in the truck. It plugs into the cigarette lighter. A major problem is overheating, especially in warm weather, so they try to run the incubator cool: 98-99°F. Matt was saying that the Peregrine situation in California is still critical. Of 13 eggs on the central coast - between Monterey & Diablo Canyon, only the northernmost & a southernmost one are laying good eggs. The rest are laying "dead" eggs. Big mystery here - as not only are the eggs thin, but dead right from the start. Another thing is chick death just after pipping. He said one can see a "polluted" egg - the membranes are all brown at hatching. The chicks are dying of infections - maybe brought on by pesticide loading (thin shells as a load barrier?). Another problem is a skewed sex ratio; there are fewer adult males than females. One male even switched females along the Big Sur coast. [illegible] The one females