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[urbpan]

Another Urban Wildlife Trading Card.
Now to find a copyright-free photograph for it.





Peregrine Falcon
Falco peregrinus

Most birds of prey that visit the city return to tall trees in the parks or suburbs to nest. Not so, for the peregrine falcon, who spends its nights, and raises its chicks, on the skyscrapers downtown. Peregrines are cliff-nesters, like the most urban of prey birds, the pigeons. Peregrine falcons catch pigeons in mid-flight, reaching speeds of over 200 mph as they dive between the steel towers. The impact can kill the pigeon outright, but failing that the falcon has a notch in its bill designed for snipping the spinal cord of their prey. High speed flight and struggling prey don't mix.

Peregrine falcons were on the brink of extinction when activists helped ban the insecticide DDT, which traveled the food chain into the falcons, weakening their eggshells. In recent years they were even taken off the endangered species list. Now many cities are proud to have falcon nests in the artificial cliffs of their tall buildings.

Comments

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I live in that area, and I see red-tailed hawks almost daily. I saw one this morning, in fact. The only other raptor I've seen in the area is a Cooper's hawk. The red-tail is a big bird, as big as, say, the biggest sea gull you've ever seen. The cooper's is about the size of a crow. The red-tail flies pretty slowly, with big wing-beats and as much gliding as it can get away with. The cooper's flies real fast--it catches birds mostly, sometimes in flight.

I found this picture of a red-tail in flight from below: http://www.camacdonald.com/birding/RedTailedHawk(AG).gif
Keep in mind that red-tails are quite variable: most of the ones I've seen are not this dark along the wing margins. Is it close?