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A Peregrine Tail Chase
In the few moments before the two birds disappeared around the bend of the river, I saw the details of the falcon with a crystal clarity: the black head like a football helmet with a strap coming down the side of the cheek, the white upper breast and delicate horizontal barring on the belly. I appreciated the quick, whip-like action of the wings, and the intense concentration of the chase. Suddenly I was wide awake, noticeably more alive than before the falcon sliced through my day. I did not get to see the outcome of that incident. The killdeer may have escaped, for predators fail more often than they succeed. But I knew that this falcon had caught many birds, because it was an adult. (An immature bird, one hatched in the spring of the same year, would have a brown back, and lengthwise streaks on the belly.) Therefore, this bird had to be a year and a half old, or more, and it had undoubtedly eaten at least one bird every day all its life, many at the end of fast pursuit. How fast is a Peregrine? Often peregrines hunt the way I saw that one, in a long tail chase. Other times they drop from the sky in a powered stoop. The speed of a diving peregrine has been estimated at up to 260 mph.
-- Diane Cooledge Porter Copyright 2006 by Diane Porter |
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I was standing late one afternoon by the Des Moines River at Iowa's Lacey Keosauqua State Park, in southeastern Iowa. The only birds to watch were a dozen killdeer feeding and loitering along the shore, so I had my binoculars trained on them.
Suddenly a gray-backed bird, flying fast on long pointed wings, appeared from nowhere, and the group of killdeer went from peaceful feeding to full-out flight in a heartbeat. The peregrine singled out one bird and was closing on it, matching its escape maneuvers turn for turn.
