Peregrine
Just a simple portrait of an adult female Peregrine Falcon against a blue sky. Peregrine Falcons hunt prey by flying high then stooping on flying birds at great speed. The actual speed of a Peregrine stoop was always hotly debated with estimates centred on 100 mph. But modern techniques for measuring speed have established that they are much faster than this, with the fastest recorded speed at 242 mph. This makes them officially the fastest living thing on the planet (I'll ignore the fact that my air speed greatly exceeds this each time I travel on an aeroplane).
During the 1950s and 1960s the population was severely depleted by the effects of the (then) widely used pesticide DDT. But the chemical was abolished and gradually the population has recovered. The current population in Britain is about 1750 pairs. The DDT upset the birds' Calcium metabolism causing them to lay eggs with thin shells which broke when birds tried to incubate or turn them.
Unbelievably the Latin name Falco peregrinus was used to name this bird by Albertus Magnus in Germany c1250, about 500 years before Linnaeus proposed the binomial system of scientific names. The Latin word peregrinus means wandering or foreign, and Albertus applied the name to a young falcon that had made its first long-distance flight from unknown parts. Birds caught in this way were better developed and more desirable for falconry than those taken from the nest. John Ray first anglicised falco peregrinus to Peregrine Falcon in 1678.
Like many birds of prey, the female is noticeably larger than the male. The heaviest British males reach 750g whereas females can reach 1300g, though 1100g is more usual. I photographed this one close to home in the West Yorkshire Pennines but not near a nesting site.
Peregrine
Just a simple portrait of an adult female Peregrine Falcon against a blue sky. Peregrine Falcons hunt prey by flying high then stooping on flying birds at great speed. The actual speed of a Peregrine stoop was always hotly debated with estimates centred on 100 mph. But modern techniques for measuring speed have established that they are much faster than this, with the fastest recorded speed at 242 mph. This makes them officially the fastest living thing on the planet (I'll ignore the fact that my air speed greatly exceeds this each time I travel on an aeroplane).
During the 1950s and 1960s the population was severely depleted by the effects of the (then) widely used pesticide DDT. But the chemical was abolished and gradually the population has recovered. The current population in Britain is about 1750 pairs. The DDT upset the birds' Calcium metabolism causing them to lay eggs with thin shells which broke when birds tried to incubate or turn them.
Unbelievably the Latin name Falco peregrinus was used to name this bird by Albertus Magnus in Germany c1250, about 500 years before Linnaeus proposed the binomial system of scientific names. The Latin word peregrinus means wandering or foreign, and Albertus applied the name to a young falcon that had made its first long-distance flight from unknown parts. Birds caught in this way were better developed and more desirable for falconry than those taken from the nest. John Ray first anglicised falco peregrinus to Peregrine Falcon in 1678.
Like many birds of prey, the female is noticeably larger than the male. The heaviest British males reach 750g whereas females can reach 1300g, though 1100g is more usual. I photographed this one close to home in the West Yorkshire Pennines but not near a nesting site.