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The Falcon That Flew With Man
Peregrines occur in every continent except Antartica.
The Peregrine Falcon has the honour of being the fastest creatue in the natural world.
She can be identified in adult plumage by her blue grey back, cream chest with vertical black bars on legs and aabdomen. Her head is dark capped with a dark stripe, known as the malar stripe below her eyes.Her wings are long and tapered and she has a shortish barred tail. She will have yellow legs and proportionally large yellow feet, perfect for binding to her prey in flight. Her bill is pointed, dark grey and equipped with a 'tooth' on each side to assist her in breaking the vertebrae of her preys neck. Immature falcons are identified by their brown plumage.
A female peregrine is known as a falcon and the male a tiercel, he is about a third lighter than the female.
The shape and form of a peregrine is the ultimate in design for making her streamlined and aerodynamic. She can achieve speeds of over 300kph in a stoop and is capable of making strategic decisions in microseconds. To protect her when stooping in high speeds she has an additional eyelid, known as a nictating membrane to protect her eye and in her nostril she has a central cone to stop her from blacking out.
Her eyesight is truly amazing as they have two forveas. One of them has five times as many visual cells than ours and is shaped like a telephoto lens, enabling her to see prey as far as 10 kms away.
A peregrines diet can very, they are capable of taking a wide variety of prey, pigeons, duck, grouse, pheasant, rooks, smaller species of brids and rabbits are all on the menu.
They will use a variety of hunting techniques, from level pursuit flights, to ringing up flights to all out high speed stoops. She will tend to hunt mornings and evenings and most pursuits are proceeded by 'still hunting', she will sit at a vantage point waiting for the right opportunity to come along.
She will always try to bind her quarry in mid air after the initial strike, quite often the prey is killed on the first strike. They will not hunt everyday outside of the breeding season and it is thought that around one in six hunts are successful.
We have long lived in awe of them but have sadly also been responsible for persecuting them aswell. Fortunately, through good conservation and protection of nestsites, thay have now reestablished a healthy breeding population.
The future is looking good for the peregrine falcon, lets work to keep it that way, they truly are one of the mother natures greatest creations, so get out there and watch them, and prepare to be inspired.
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