Peregrine Falcons

These raptors eat small birds.

Unlike the Owls who swallow their prey whole and later puke up pellets,  Peregrines dismember their prey (small birds). If you find guts, legs, feathers and feet on the ground it may be the leftovers from a Peregrine meal.

You may have read some of my other book reviews, but it you have not, I should tell you that that I enjoy reading books about birds (or nature), adventure stories and memoirs of actual people. 

I live in Colorado and this book, The Peregrine Falcons of Chimney Rock, takes place in Southern Colorado at Chimney Rock. It focuses on the Peregrine Falcon and I love to learn about each bird species through stories rather than just looking at a list of characteristics which is how most bird identification books are written. 

Wings for My Flight was honored by winning the Christopher Award which chooses writers of books, motion pictures and television that "affirm the highest values of the human spirit". This book is a partial autobiography by Marcy Cotrell Houle. I heartily recommend it.  Wings for My Flight is part adventure, part falcon history and part ecophilosophy.

Peregrine falcons are on the endangered species list of birds.  They are raptors who nest on cliffs. The book begins when Marcy, a recent college graduate in wildlife biology, goes to live in Southern Colorado and work observing Peregrines there. It covers the inner workings of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Colorado Division of Wildlife.  It has some tense political situations when local people want to develop the Chimney Rock area for economic gain, which will endanger the Peregrines during nesting season (which impacts their future survival).

To order this book from Barnes and Noble Click on the Blue text after the photo below.

The Peregrine Fund was established as a response to the decline in Peregrines from DDT exposure.  The fund was housed at Cornell University. Tom Cade was the Director of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology at a that time and the co-founder was Bob Berry.

40 pairs of adult falcons were housed in what was dubbed the Peregrine Palace (a 230 foot long building). Their goal was to study and perhaps reintroduce the falcon to the wild.  Their funding came from a variety of sources including: private donations, IBM, the World Wildlife Fund, the US Army, the Audubon Society, US Fish and Wildlife among others.  Before they knew it they had 20 young birds who were captively born.  They also developed Artificial Insemination techniques (leading edge science at the time) and effectively restored the Peregrine population in the US.

The Peregrine Falcon is found on every continent except for Antarctica and Iceland. The word Peregrinus is Latin for wanderer.

Falcons have long been used as diplomatic gifts. The Gulf states have long been breeders and trainers of falcons.