Peregrine Falcon

Gerald and Buff Corsi
© 2002 California Academy of Sciences

The Peregrine Falcon is a very interesting type of bird. It sound is weird it sounds like this, kek, kek, kek.

Description: This bird looks like a big hawk but is not, it has brown spots and bars on its chest. Also it has a white face with black stripes like sideburns. Also it has a slate gray back. Females look like males, but are bigger.

Food: It eats a variety of birds such as ducks, starlings, pigeons, gulls, shorebirds, sparrows, songbirds, and other small birds. It also eats rodents and fish. It is a carnivore.

How does it hunt? This bird hunts by scanning the ground while soaring in the sky. Peregrines fly extremely fast and when it sees its prey, it swoops down and tries to catch it. If the prey dodges away, the falcon will stamp his/her feet and flaps its wings and tries again. It can swoop down at 275 miles per hour! He is fast, he can go faster than my truck!

Peregrines don't seem like they would dwell in cities, but they actually do like to live on the tippy-top of a skyscraper or other tall buildings. Sometimes they would go to a town or city and lay their eggs on perches or window ledges. Also these birds live in open fields, in the countryside, near mountains, and along seacoasts. A long time ago, for centuries, peregrines were prized by kings and were used to hunt by falconers. Scientists bred peregrines in captivity. In the mid 1970's disappeared from eastern America. Their number was reduced by 80% to 90% in the west. Also in the 1970's only two known pairs nesting peregrines in California! Some of the reasons peregrines are endangered is, men cutting down the falcons natural habitat, also man's pollution killed most of the falcons, but the biggest reason is because one pesticide called DDT. That one pesticide killed most of the peregrines and made it so if the birds laid eggs the egg would be so thin that the baby birds would just die. We need to save this bird because soon it will be extinct. For all you bird/animal lovers out there see if you can help save this bird!

by Karina