Peregrine falcons
Peregrines are probably the fastest of all animals under their own power; in a dive they can possibly exceed 150 mph. They have captured the imagination of people for thousands of years and are considered the ultimate falconer's bird. Like several other North American raptors they were hard-hit by pesticide contamination in the 1960s and 1970s, but are now recovering (notably, with the help of captive rearing projects managed by The Peregrine Fund). Most of the young falcons on this page hunted around the San Jacinto Wildlife Area (near Riverside, California) in the winters of 2003-2004 and 2005-2006; the yearling female eating the mew gull was on Bolsa Chica State Beach in Orange County, California. The Bolsa Chica bird was exceptionally tolerant; I was able to approach within 10 meters and watched and photographed her for 40 minutes until she polished off the gull. However, most of these falcons were fairly shy and allowed only a few chances for photographs; I took the upper left picture from the window of my car as the bird glared at me from its perch on a power pole. The bird with a pigeon (upper center) put on a terrific swooping attack and snatched its prey out of the air near Moreno Valley, California -- only to lose it in a screaming swirling fight with crows, ravens, red-tailed hawks, a ferruginous hawk, and a kestrel. I don't know who got the pigeon, but the peregrine looked really annoyed when it landed on a phone pole a minute later (near the bottom of the page, at left). The dark flying peregrine (also a juvenile) was at the Salton Sea in southeastern California, the upper right image shows this falcon's typical 'anchor' shape while soaring. The adult bird in the portrait at the very bottom of the page is a captive; it's been injured to the extent that it can't be released.
Images copyright by Mark A. Chappell
