Falcons of California

Peregrine falcons are beautiful assassins. With distinctive dark hoods and rakish yellow ceres, they have the air of an old-fashioned movie villain you can’t help but root for.

In attack, they are screamingly fast. It’s not unusual for them to reach speeds of 240 miles per hour when diving on prey, and even when they pass with relaxed undulation, they’re typically moving faster than your car.

The peregrine completely devoured its meal, tearing chunks of flesh with its hooked beak, ripping out entrails, and picking feathers from its mouth with talons.

Peregrines can hunt birds much larger than themselves … I’ve seen them charge turkey vultures, gulls, and even a cormorant.

The air was eerily calm along the rocky California coast. As the sun arced behind me in a cloudless sky, the cliff walls transformed before me from a dusky yellow watercolor into a vibrant orange screenprint. A mixture of sunscreen and sweat stung my eyes while my neck ached from a constant upward gaze. A day at the beach wasn’t supposed to be this taxing, but I wasn’t here to sunbathe; I was looking for a family of peregrine falcons.

Peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus) are beautiful assassins. With distinctive dark hoods and rakish yellow ceres, they have the air of an old-fashioned movie villain you can’t help but root for. Females are slightly larger than males, but at no more than twenty inches in length, they embody the idea of punching above their weight, featherweight boxers to the core. The fledglings are smaller again and look more ruffled than the adults, with dark vertical streaks on their bellies and none of the yellow facial markings.

I had chosen to look for them on a hot summer afternoon because I knew the young peregrines would be venturing out of their nest, but as they weren’t ready to hunt for themselves, I hoped to see some action when they interacted with their parents. I knew the family had produced three chicks, but I could only see two perched on a rocky ledge, high on the cliffs they called home. Their eyes locked on everything that fluttered past, but they refused to pursue anything. 

I contemplated the environment while I waited for something to happen. With tall bluffs in front and the ocean behind me, my movements were confined to heavy steps in the sand. Meanwhile, the peregrines had command over everything in sight. It’s no wonder they displayed, as John Alec Baker called it, “fire of spirit.”

Peregrines are rightfully called the fastest animal on earth. In attack, they are screamingly fast. It’s not unusual for them to reach speeds of 240 miles per hour when diving on prey, and even when they pass with relaxed undulation, they’re typically moving faster than your car. Charles Hood described them as “dark blue meteors,” yet here were two doing almost nothing. Of course, wildlife photography requires patience, but mine was wearing thin.

Suddenly, I was aware of an urgent wailing vocalization growing louder. I could hear the adult peregrine before I could see it, the rising, high-pitched screech repeating. I spun around with my camera in time to see what looked like a large flint arrowhead cruising along the cliff edge. The fledglings I’d been watching were hungry for a fresh delivery of food and screamed in agitated response. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the third sibling flushed from a hidden ledge and flew up to meet its parent. I was too slow to focus my lens and missed the prey transfer, but I tracked the juvenile as it took off with something in its talons.

With pointed wings and a body that tapered to a wedge-shaped tail, it already formed an iconic silhouette. I watched as the young falcon approached the estuary and settled on a perch around twelve feet above the beach. Running on sand is comically slow, especially with a camera bag, telephoto lens, and water bottle on your back. Still, I had no idea how long it would stay in that opportune spot, so I hustled toward it. After fumbling to balance my camera on its tripod, I began to photograph a gory scene. 

Peregrines primarily feed on other birds, and while I couldn’t tell what species was for dinner, it looked like a small songbird. Over half an hour, the peregrine completely devoured its meal, tearing chunks of flesh with its hooked beak, ripping out entrails, and picking feathers from its mouth with talons. Seeing the foot of the other bird draped from the falcon’s mouth was particularly gruesome. Still, peregrines are predators, and with a lifespan of up to fifteen years in the wild, death is an essential part of their lives.

Several species of falcon are commonly found in California. American kestrels, prairie falcons, and merlins can all be seen in the Bay Area alone, but peregrines are my personal favorite. They were once listed as an endangered species in California due to the use of pesticides, but thanks to conservation efforts, their population has significantly recovered in recent decades. I’ve been fortunate to see them everywhere, from remote outcrops in the Channel Islands to urban centers like Berkeley.

Peregrines aren’t limited to California, however. We have year-round residents, but some are long-distance migrants—sometimes traveling 18,000 miles yearly—and can be found on nearly every continent. In fact, their scientific name means wandering or foreigner in Latin. Much of their success is down to this adaptability. Still, their undeniable skill as diurnal hunters on the wing sets them apart, beginning with their eyesight. 

In A Most Remarkable Creature, Jonathan Meiburg wrote, “True falcons’ visual powers nearly defy belief. Peregrines have the fastest visual processing speed measured in any animal, and their eyes are so sharp that they could read the headline of a newspaper from a mile away.” Tabloids might not be a priority, but targeting prey from vast distances is. 

You can see their head twitch, whether soaring in the sky or perched at an elevated position, while the dark feathers around their eyes reduce glare as they search for movement. When something grabs their attention, the rest of the world slides away from their proportionally huge eyes, and their focus flares into clear view. “Everything he is,” wrote John Alec Baker in The Peregrine, “has been evolved to link the targeting eye with the striking talon.” 

With incredible speed and agility, peregrines are ariel hunters of the highest order, perfectly adapted to pursue and kill birds in flight. They like to attack from above, their streamlined bodies descending into a stoop at terrifying speed. They can simply snatch other birds in mid-air with acrobatic flight patterns, sharp turns, and surprising strength. Even more impressively, they’re likely to smash their prey out of existence with clenched fists before dropping underneath to catch it. 

Peregrines can hunt birds much larger than themselves, such as ducks or geese. Still, whether they’re looking for a meal or just protecting their airspace, they are fearless in attack and rarely make mistakes. I’ve seen them charge turkey vultures, gulls, and even a cormorant, but the one that astonished me was an osprey. Ospreys look like flying weapons, but the peregrine easily won that mid-air tussle. They are true badasses.

The following spring, I was back on the beach. Peregrine falcons are monogamous and mate for life, so I hoped to find the same pair raising a new family. However, it was still early in the season, and no chicks were visible. A lone adult sat almost motionless on a prominent rock, but I didn’t have to wait long for something to happen this time. The male, known as the tiercel, arrived with a western meadowlark in its talons and brought it to a ledge lined with ice plants. The female immediately joined him, and looking at the difference in their size, that was the moment I learned which was which.

The female took command of the meal, and with a flutter of discarded feathers, the male left with his portion of the kill. That afternoon, I watched the couple exhibit courtship displays that I didn’t immediately understand, but when the female leaned towards the setting sun and the male landed on her back, flapping his wings and showing their bright white undersides, I knew what that meant. One of my goals for the year was to photograph more animal behavior. So having captured this pair mating, I knew I had a chance to photograph the whole story as they raised a new brood.

Over the next few months, I returned to the beach regularly. Their eyrie was aptly established in an egg-shaped indentation in the cliff, and the scrape was formed in the remnants of an old raven’s nest. Unfortunately, I wasn’t around for much of the incubation period, but I was delighted when I saw their clutch of eggs had produced another three chicks.

At first, the chicks were white fluff balls, but they grew rapidly. Before long, they were starting to look more like their parents. Still, when they stretched their wings by the edge of the nest, you could see patchy clumps of white downy feathers underneath. As the weeks progressed, they hopped onto nearby ledges, learned to take their first tentative flights, chased their parents across the sky, and carried sticks in place of prey. They developed fast.

A couple of years later, when my son was born, we called him Gavin. Gavin is a Celtic name with Scottish roots. It’s said to mean, amongst other things, ‘little falcon,’ so it seemed only appropriate that we went to see peregrines at Bodega Bay for our first photo adventure together. It was a foggy day on the coast, without much of the regular avian activity we expected, but it meant a lot to us. I hope these birds inspire him to lead a bold life full of adventures as our own little falcon takes flight.

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