As part of a cooperative effort with the Pennsylvania Game Commission to re-establish the peregrine falcon in the state, Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. has built a nesting box at the company's Sunbury and Montour power plants.

The 2-foot-by-3-foot nesting boxes are located about halfway up one of the plant's smokestacks.

"The boxes are intended to provide a suitable nesting site for peregrine falcons," said Jeff Luzenski, coordinator of PP&L's peregrine falcon project. "Our hope is that they will attract a pair of peregrine falcons that will establish a nest."

The nesting boxes are part of a PP&L corporate effort to re-establish the endangered birds in Pennsylvania. Last year, PP&L joined forces with community groups and local businesses to release five young falcons on the outside of the 23rd floor of the company's headquarters in downtown Allentown. This effort will be repeated this summer with new birds.

As an expansion of the peregrine project, the nesting boxes were built at Sunbury and Montour, and the Martins Creek and Brunner Island power plants and the company headquarters building in Allentown. All the power plant nest boxes are built on a shed-like structure that houses continuous emission monitoring equipment on smokestacks. PP&L is exploring the possibility of a nest at the Susquehanna nuclear power plant.

"In Allentown, we will be raising and releasing young peregrine falcons with the hope that we can establish a future nesting pair in the Lehigh Valley," Luzenski said. "The nesting boxes at Sunbury and Montour and at the other plants hopefully will allow us to attract previously released falcons or falcons migrating through the state."

Most peregrine falcons have established nest sites and are on eggs by early April, Luzenski said.

"We just got the boxes up this spring, so it's unlikely that we would get a nesting pair so soon," Luzenski said. "Our hope is to have success sometime in the next few years." PP&L plans to leave the boxes in place indefinitely. These are PP&L's first nesting boxes for peregrine falcons, but the company is not new to the effort to nest rare and endangered birds. For many years, PP&L has had a nesting program for osprey along the Delaware River at Martins Creek. The company also has bald eagles nesting near PP&L's Holtwood power plant on the Susquehanna River

"The peregrine falcon program is another example of PP&L's commitment to the environment and to conduct our business in an environmentally responsible manner," Luzenski said.