Falco peregrinus

The Peregrine Falcon is a relatively large falcon, with a body length of 38-50 cm, a wingspan of 95-115 cm, a weight of 647-825 grams, and a lifespan of 11 years. Medium sized raptor. The dark slate on the head and back of the neck is blue-gray to black, sometimes embellished with brown; the back and shoulders are blue-gray, with dark brown feather shaft lines and horizontal spots. The coverts on the waist and tail are also blue-gray, but slightly lighter, with dark brown horizontal stripes. The spots are also narrower; the tail is dark blue-gray with dark brown horizontal spots and light tips; the wing coverts are light blue-gray with dark brown feather shaft stripes and horizontal spots; the flight feathers are dark brown with dirty white end spots and micro-stripes. Brown markings, with gray-white horizontal spots on the inner side; cheeks and broad and drooping moustache dark brown. The throat and moustache lines are white before and after, the rest of the underparts are white or t

Resident birds: Afghanistan, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Aruba, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Bermuda, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Comoros, Congo (Brazzaville), Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba , Curacao, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Cote d'Ivoire, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Swaziland, Ethiopia, Falkland Islands (Malvinas), Fiji, Finland, France, French Guiana, Gabon, Gambia, Germany, Ghana, Gibraltar, Greece, Greenland, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kenya, South Korea, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Lithuania, Madaga

Peregrine falcon is called Peregrine Falcon in foreign language, and it has 18 subspecies. The three types of peregrine falcons distributed in China are mainly the southern subspecies of peregrine falcons, the eastern subspecies of peregrine falcons (also known as the nominate subspecies), and the common subspecies of peregrine falcons (also known as the northern peregrine falcons). Among them, the southern subspecies and the nominate subspecies are more common, and the common subspecies is relatively rare.

Peregrine falcons are partly resident and partly migratory. Some also wander around after the breeding season. Bird populations with migratory behavior are highly migratory in the temperate and arctic regions of their range, from North America to South America, from Europe to Africa, and from North Asia to South Asia and Indonesia. Those that breed in low latitudes or in the Southern Hemisphere tend to be resident birds. Migratory birds leave their breeding grounds between August and November and return between March and May. Migratory populations can easily fly across the vast ocean. Most peregrine falcons travel alone or in pairs, even when migrating.

Peregrine falcons are mostly solitary, with sharp, slightly hoarse calls. They usually glide with a burst of rapid flapping flight; they also like to soar in the air. They are ferocious in temperament, and dare to attack even golden eagles, gyrfals, buzzards, etc. that are much larger than them, but their motivation is often to defend their nests and territories. Since it mainly hunts in the air, it needs faster speed than other birds of prey, so it has a relatively large weight, narrow wings that can reduce drag like high-speed aircraft, and relatively short tail feathers. Most of the time, it flies in the air and hunts. When it finds prey, it first quickly rises to a high altitude to occupy the commanding height, then folds its wings so that the flight feathers on the wings are parallel to the longitudinal axis of the body, shrinks its head to the shoulder, and dives down from the sky at a speed of 75-100 meters per second, almost vertically. When approaching the prey, it slightly opens its wings, uses the impact of the high-speed dive to hit the prey with its toes or grabs it with its sharp claws like daggers, causing it to be injured or killed immediately. People who have really seen peregrine falcons hunting must be unforgettable. Finally, it takes the prey to a more secluded place, holds it down with its feet, strips the feathers with its mouth, and then tears it into small pieces to swallow. Sometimes it also hunts on the ground. In line with this hunting method, its tarsus becomes short and strong, and the toes that grasp the prey become thin and long.

Peregrine falcons do not usually fly very fast, with a speed of only 50-100 kilometers per hour, but they are the fastest birds in diving, with a maximum speed of more than 300 kilometers per hour. The diving hunting ability of peregrine falcons is not innate, so it also has a rare behavior in nature to teach young birds hunting skills.

Peregrine falcons actually only hunt birds in flight. However, like many other falcons, they will also catch large insects in flight, such as beetles, and also eat bats and rodents. Male birds are smaller and catch prey ranging in size from tits to jays and even pigeons. Female birds are fatter and larger, and the size of the prey they catch ranges from blackbirds to wood pigeons. They also catch ducks, even geese and herons, but these catches are very special, and the northern peregrine falcons are fatter, so they don't need to bring their prey back to the cliffs during their migration route, and they are usually eaten on the spot. They mainly prey on small and medium-sized birds such as wild ducks, gulls, pigeons, crows and chickens, and occasionally small mammals such as mice and hares.

Falcons are monogamous, and unless one of them is unfortunately killed, they generally stay together for life. The breeding season is from April to June (the southern subspecies of peregrine falcons starts as early as mid-March each year). At that time, you can often see the parents flying back and forth in the air, and occasionally singing happily; mating takes place on the towering rocks near the cliffs or on the branches of large trees with sparse leaves. The female bird first stands firmly, slightly spreads her wings and keeps singing, and then the male bird flies from the side to the back of the female bird. The two birds sing happily while swinging their tail feathers to put their cloaca directly against each other. After a few seconds, the mating is completed, and the male bird flies away from the back of the female bird. At this time, the female bird either shakes and stretches her wings on the spot, or follows the male bird to fly into the sky.

Peregrine falcons nest in clearings in the forest, cliffs in the river valley, jungles on the edge of the land, and other types of habitats that are difficult for humans to reach. On steep cliffs, they also nest on mounds or swamps. Sometimes they also use the nests of other birds such as crows, and also build nests in tree holes and buildings. Generally, nests are built in dense forests without clearings and cliffs. The nest is mainly made of dead branches, with a few grass stems, leaves and feathers inside, and some have no inner padding. Each nest lays 2-4 eggs, occasionally up to 5 or 6 eggs. The eggs are reddish brown and are (49-58) mm × (39-43) mm in size. The male and female parents take turns incubating the eggs. During the incubation period, they are very territorial and often actively defend the nest. The incubation period is 28-29 days. The chicks are late-maturing and are raised by the parents after hatching. They can only leave the nest after living in the nest for 35-42 days.

After the chicks have full feathers and flap their wings to leave the nest, they will not leave the parents immediately to make a living on their own, but will continue to live with the parents for a period of time. During this period, they will still be fed and raised by the parents, and receive the parents' hunting and survival "training". There is a set of shots in a documentary: when the peregrine falcon chicks begin to learn to hunt, the parents will catch a live pigeon for them and deliberately let it go so that they can practice chasing and hunting. When the young peregrine falcons first start hunting, they cannot grasp the direction and attack target, rushing around but cannot catch the pigeon and are about to lose confidence. The mother peregrine falcon flying with them often helps them, grabs or scratches the pigeon to slow down its flying speed, and then lets it go to chase and attack the pigeon. After a month or two, when the young peregrine falcon catches prey for the first time, its hunting training is slowly coming to an end, and it is no longer completely dependent on its parents for feeding. The arrival of the rebirth period also forces them to leave their parents and live alone.

In 2020, partners of the "Flight Science Committee" estimated that the number of peregrine falcons in the United States and Canada was about 72,000. The number in North Africa is estimated to be 2,290-2,900 pairs. The European population is estimated at 16,100-31,100 pairs, equivalent to 32,200-62,100 mature pairs. Europe accounts for about 13% of the global range, so a preliminary estimate of the global peregrine falcon population is 248,000-478,000 mature individuals, although further verification of this estimate is needed. The species population of the peregrine falcon is therefore placed in the range of 100,000-499,999 mature individuals.

In European countries such as the United Kingdom, the use of highly toxic chlorinated seed fertilizers has caused a decline in the number of peregrine falcons, as well as other raptors that are at the top of the food chain in nature, such as sparrowhawks, kestrels and barn owls. These toxic chemicals often accumulate to a certain extent in the bodies of prey, and eventually poison birds of prey such as peregrine falcons, making their eggshells thinner and extremely easy to break during the incubation process, leading to their infertility, deformed chicks, and even the death of large numbers of adult birds and chicks.

Peregrine falcons are under serious threat worldwide, and their numbers are declining sharply. The main reason for this phenomenon is the abuse of pesticides worldwide. After peregrine falcons prey on prey with pesticides accumulated in their bodies, their reproductive systems are damaged, which will reduce the egg-laying rate and embryo survival rate. What's more serious is that trace amounts of pesticides have been detected in the blood of the brains of many birds of prey, including peregrine falcons, which is undoubtedly a potential threat to the highly developed movement regulation system of peregrine falcons. Once the amount of pesticides in the brain reaches a toxic level, the peregrine falcon will not only no longer be a good hunter, but it is also likely to have difficulty flying. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, American peregrine falcons and bald eagles were almost extinct, and the culprit was the pesticide DDT. After nearly a century of many scientists' all-out efforts to save and protect them, the American peregrine falcon population has now recovered and grown.

Because peregrine falcons can be trained into hunting birds and are relatively valuable falcons, they are very popular among falcon trainers. In developed regions such as Europe and the United States, many private groups or individuals have successfully domesticated and bred peregrine falcons, gyrfalcons, hunting falcons, and even golden eagles. The sale of artificially domesticated falcons has also been highly legalized. In many places, there are institutions that specialize in training trainees to domesticate raptors for hunting. As the birthplace of falconry culture, China has a history of falconry of nearly a thousand years, but has failed to carry it forward. It has to be said that this is a great loss. Nowadays, quite a number of people in China domesticate falcons, but most of their behavior is illegal, and the domesticated falcons are almost all captured from the wild.

Listed in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2021 ver3.1-Least Concern (LC).

Listed in Appendix I, II and III of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) 2019 Edition Appendix II.

Listed in China's National Key Protected Wildlife List (February 5, 2021) Level II.

Protect wild animals and stop eating game.

Maintaining ecological balance is everyone's responsibility!