NORMAL - Move over, Reggie Redbird. The cardinal may be mascot at Illinois State University, but two bird experts hope a new nesting platform atop Watterson Towers at ISU eventually will be home sweet home to a pair of peregrine falcons.

The idea to give falcons a nesting place came after two of the birds, a male and an immature female, paid a visit to the dormitory for three weeks from mid-February to early March.

Several other peregrines were seen buzzing the dormitory this fall as they migrated south for the winter. As many as three falcons were seen there in one day.

Peregrine falcons are normally cliff dwellers in the wild, but they have adapted to nest on tall buildings in major urban centers in North America, including Chicago, St. Louis and Indianapolis.

At nearly 300 feet high, Watterson Towers attracts the once-endangered birds because it's one of the tallest structures in Central Illinois.

"It acts like a beacon," said Given Harper, an expert on the crow-sized falcons and other raptors. He leads Illinois Wesleyan University's biology department.

"The fact these birds are actually staying here and the fact we have a wonderful food source in the form of pigeons … we are actually excited this might work," added Angelo Capparella, an ISU biology professor, bird expert and member of the John Wesley Powell chapter of the Audubon Society.

Harper found plans for the box through contacts on the Internet. He and Capparella credited Miller Park Zoo volunteer Jeff Simpson with the construction. ISU officials agreed to the project as a science experiment and ISU workers installed the 50-pound box Thursday high above the roof of the dormitory, where falcons can see it and won't be disturbed.

The placement was picked to allow the box to be seen from the Children's Discovery Museum so visitors can use spotting scopes and binoculars to view birds if a pair chooses it for a home. That could take more than a year, the scientists said.

The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology describes a peregrine falcon as a medium-sized hawk with a black mustache face marking and long pointed wings. They can reach 19 inches in height with a wingspan of 43 inches. They are the fastest birds on earth, diving to speeds of 200 mph when attacking their prey.

Though peregrine falcons will breed with the same mate over several years, Harper thinks it unlikely the same pair that visited last winter will return. But other falcons should begin migrating through Central Illinois by February on their trip from South America to the Arctic tundra.

"Peregrine" means wanderer, and at 15,500 miles, the annual migration is one of the longest made by any North American bird.

Once a pair sets up house, they could return to the ISU location for several years in a row, he said.

A female falcon lays three or four eggs in April or May. They are incubated for about a month.

From the 1950s to the 1970s, falcons were extinct east of the Mississippi River. The now-banned agricultural chemical DDT weakened the egg shells of falcons and other raptors, including bald eagles.

The peregrine falcons rebounded thanks to restocking efforts, and the birds were removed from the endangered species list by 1999 when estimates placed their number at 7,000 in North America. Peregrine falcons remain federally protected.