How a falcon named Savanna mirrors the life of Savanna Lafontaine-Greywind, whose baby was cut from her womb

Jun. 26—LA CRESCENT, Minn. — An inexplicable human-animal parallel has been playing out on the cliff face of Great Spirit Bluff, high above the Mississippi River near La Crescent, Minnesota.

A peregrine falcon named Savanna, hatched atop a downtown Fargo bank building in 2019, laid four eggs of her own this spring in a nest box on the Minnesota property nearly 400 miles away.

A live web cam operated by

Raptor Resource Project

and

hosted on explore.org

captured Savanna laying and incubating the eggs, and the hatchlings coming out of their shells over two days in early May.

But the story turned sad in the dark early hours of June 12, with the baby birds just days from being able to fly.

Amy Ries, who works with the Raptor Resource Project in Decorah, Iowa, said Savanna had a fatal encounter with a great horned owl that had tried to breach the nest box.

"We suspect that Savanna's last act was to really protect her young by giving the owl as good as she got," Ries said.

The falcon had been named Savanna by bank employees

as a tribute to Savanna Lafontaine-Greywind, the 22-year-old Native woman who met a brutal death when a neighbor in her Fargo apartment building incapacitated Savanna and cut the baby girl from her womb to claim as her own in August 2017.

Lafontaine-Greywind's daughter Haisley Jo survived the attack and is now 5 and being raised by her family at last report.

Savanna the falcon's offspring also survived and are being fed and cared for by their father Newman, a resident peregrine in that area.

Tim Driscoll, a regional raptor expert from Grand Forks, banded Savanna in June of 2019, a process of placing colored or metal number bands on a bird's leg to help identify them and learn about migration, behavior, reproductive success and life-span.

He and Ries had been keeping a close eye on Savanna and her young chicks and the news about her is tough to take.

"No bander likes to learn that a bird they banded is dead, but we'd rather know that than not know anything," Ries said.

"They all have a special place in my heart but this one for all the obvious reasons, even more so," Driscoll said.

She lives hundreds of miles from Fargo but Ries remembers vividly the horrific crime against Savanna Lafontaine-Greywind,

who died at the hands of neighbor Brooke Crews on Aug. 19, 2017.

Crews was sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing Lafontaine-Greywind and taking her baby; Crews' then-boyfriend, William Hoehn, is serving 20 years behind bars for moving Savanna's body and lying to police.

"It was just such a terrible thing," Ries said.

In the wake of that, Ries was happy and excited to see Savanna the falcon show up at Great Spirit Bluff near La Crescent for the first time in 2021.

In a case of anthropomorphism, or assigning human characteristics to animals, Ries made the connection.

"I'm like, 'Savanna has a second chance,'" Ries said.

In that early sighting on the webcam, the falcon Savanna entered the nest box on the cliff face where another female's nestlings were huddled while she was likely out finding food.

Ries said it was a worrying sight to see, because sometimes a female falcon will kill another's young while trying to take over a new territory.

In this case, Savanna just looked around and flew off.

Then early this spring, with her black over blue/40 over Z band on her leg, Savanna came back to the same nest box.

This time, she fought off a challenge from a female peregrine named Julie, and began courting the resident male peregrine named Newman.

"He accepted her immediately as his new mate and they started copulating," Ries said.

Savanna laid her four eggs in late March and early April, and they hatched over two days in early May, bringing to 52 the total number of falcons hatched at Great Spirit Bluff.

The one male and three female birds were named Thomas, Alice, Kami and Jayce.

Ries said the falcon Savanna had excellent feeding and care instincts from the start; but like some humans, some falcons struggle as parents.

Falcon parents are supposed to tear prey into tiny pieces for their hatchlings and place the food into their beaks.

Ries recalls the female falcon who nested at Great Spirit Bluff before Savanna who would drop a whole dead bird on top of her tiny hatchlings, not understanding what to do. Two of the hatchlings died, Ries said.

That wasn't the case for Savanna.

"She was just immediately magnificent at it," Ries said.

Savanna cared for her babies almost to the point of fledging, or taking their first flight, before she died in the battle with the owl, likely in the brush and trees at the top of the bluff.

"Peregrines are ferocious, but I would take the great horned owl if I had to bet," Driscoll said, referring to the attack.

Ries hasn't been able to bring herself to listen to the video that captured the falcon's final moments.

"I work with these birds and I don't need to poke that stick in my eye," she said.

Since Savanna's death, dad Newman took over with feeding and care and has been managing quite well.

Ries said as of June 23, all four of Savanna's young had taken flight.

Their dad will still likely bring food to the nest box for a bit.

"I would suspect they would be there for a couple of weeks and then, no pun intended, kind of branch out," Driscoll said.

It's not easy for peregrine hatchlings to survive, given the threats they face, but Savanna gave her offspring a good start.

"She was absolutely a wonderful mother," Ries said.