Band of falcons WPS worker Alan Trick removes a peregrin falcon chick from a cage during banding at the Pulliam Plant Thursday (photo by H. Marc Larson). Three baby peregrine falcons were tagged and received a medical checkup at Green Bay's Pulliam Plant By Monique Balas News-Chronicle Like children going for their shots, the three baby peregrine falcons screamed in protest during the eighth annual chick banding at Wisconsin Public Service's Pulliam Plant. Each year, the chicks that hatch at the plant are banded with tags from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Wisconsin Peregrine Society, allowing them to be tracked and identified when viewed through binoculars. This year's hatch brought 23-day-old Rocket and her brothers Josh and Craig into the world. "Pulliam is one of the most prolific peregrine-monitored sites in the Midwest. They generally stick around year-round." said Alan Trick, a Wisconsin Public Service Corp. support-staff worker who described his role to the birds as a "foster father." The birds live in a nest box atop the plant. The male and female pair originally settled on Leo Frigo Bridge but settled into the box at Pulliam after workers installed it. Trick's cousin, Greg Septon, is president of the Peregrine Society. Together, he and Trick battled flying fluff and angry squawks as they tagged the birds, then drew blood samples to catalog the birds' DNA and throat samples to make sure the birds didn't have the deadly trichinosis parasite. To get the chicks, Trick and Septon had to brave Mom, who was squawking and flying menacingly around the nest in an effort to protect her kids. The falcons are known to "dive bomb" anyone threatening their young, so hard hats were a necessity. "They're living in most major cities now," Septon said of the falcons, which have made a comeback in Wisconsin. Locally, he said there are 11 pairs between Green Bay and Kenosha. When they are born, the birds "look like fuzzy golf balls," Septon said, but it doesn't take long for them to reach full size. At only 23 days, the birds are nearly fully grown. Males usually reach adult size after 35 days, and females after 42 days, he said. When the ordeal was over, the birds were made to pose for a family portrait. They seemed to find that as painful as the tagging process, because the squawking started all over again.