‘The Peregrine Falcon' is a comprehensive 528-page book on this most iconic raptor which is richly illustrated with 150 colour images and 235 figures, aimed at bringing our scientific knowledge of the species bang up to date under one cover. The book investigates all aspects of Peregrine life, from plumage, through diet, population dynamics, breeding and survival. Falcons are iconic aerial apex predators sometimes held in mystical regard, occasionally elevated to the status of myth and legend. The book starts with consideration of ancient history of birds when dinosaurs ruled the Earth and traces the relationship of Man and Falcon as seen in painted images from ancient Egypt and stone carvings on abandoned Hittite stone walls.  Peregrines breed on all continents apart from Antarctica and the authors have collected data from across that vast range; providing information on each of the 17 subspecies (18 if the Australian F.p. submelanogenys is separate from F.p. macropus, and 19 if the Barbary Falcon is really a Peregrine form), as to diet, distribution and physical characteristics. Modern technology (inertial measurement units built by RS) and analyses of breathing, bone structure and eyesight has been used to study the flights, particularly the stooping hunts which have made Peregrines famous as arguably the fastest creature on the planet. The physics of flight and stooping speed is rigorously assessed using basic scientific principles, and a detailed analysis of eye biology, together with observational empirical evidence, allows the authors to suggest greater Peregrine visual acuity than has previously been claimed by the scientific community.

 

In the second half of the last century the need to increase food production led to the widescale application of chemicals on farmland. But the chemicals had a disastrous effect on Peregrine Falcons, causing both the breaking of eggshells and the killing of adult birds. Everywhere the chemicals were used the Peregrine population fell sharply. Alerted by both amateur and professional ornithologists to an impending catastrophe, governments banned the chemicals. Slowly the Peregrine population began to rise, in part prompted by the bird's remarkable ability to adapt. In parts of its range the falcon realized that buildings could be utilized as make-shift cliffs for breeding. And where humans congregated, pigeons flourished. That combination of potential breeding sites and high densities of a preferred prey meant an increase in urban living for the resourceful Peregrine, and numbers climbed steadily. The falcons' arrival in town increased human interest. Nest boxes were provided and video cameras were installed to watch Peregrine family life. Added to its fabulous flying abilities and renowned speed, the falcon that had once been seen only by those who sought it out in remote, wild places, has become a star of local CCTV. This book includes data and photographs from several UK nest sites, both urban (a medieval bell tower and a modern, London hospital) and a Scottish wild country eyrie studied in detail in 2022. 

Mark Cocker review

I have finally laid hands on The Peregrine Falcon by Richard Sale and Steve Watson, 2022. It’s available at £49.99 from Raptor Aid. For once the book is part of a self-sustaining circular economy, because 10% goes directly to the wonderful Raptor Aid, which supports bird-of-prey populations across Britain. So, you’re not just buying the text, you’ve subscribed directly to the well-being of the bird it describes. (I include the website as the place to buy here: https://www.raptoraid.com/shop/p/the-peregrine-falcon-book.)

But why would you? It’s not cheap. Like me, you may be a devotee of Derek Ratcliffe’s ground-breaking The Peregrine Falcon, Poyser, 1980 and 1993 (2^nd ed). Trust me, however. If you’re in at all interested in the world’s most successful avian predator, you’ll need this astonishing work. Even Derek would have wanted it. It is the most beautifully illustrated, last word on the beast.

There is barely a feather’s weight of peregrine information that has been left out. The text on the diet alone, which is possibly among the widest in any raptor, runs to 80 pages. Of special note is the way that the authors take to task all the many exaggerated claims about peregrine speed. Their reassessment is a model of meticulous exposition.

Yet the thing I love most is the way the hard science, undergirded by the clearest and boldest sets of graphics or pie-charts I’ve ever seen, works in conjunction with the photographs to create an integrated, informational and aesthetic whole. It is truly magnificent. The images, in fact – 150 in total, packed with all sort of insights and details in their own right – are worth the cover price by themselves.

Instantly it upgrades peregrine scholarship. It will be consulted for decades. It has a bibliography that runs to 32 close-typed pages and I was rather excited to find myself in its list. Not for anything I might have said in the 700,00 words of Birds Britannica or Birds and People. But because in 2007 and long forgotten by its author – but grist to the mill for these peregrine afficionados – I wrote a one-page note on a hunting bird assailed by cheeky crows. Of course, they wouldn’t miss it. And so fame at last!

 Mark Avery review This is a monumental book about what is regarded as the fastest animal on the planet (or flying over it). At over 500 pages, and amply and attractively illustrated, this is a tribute to and reference source about a marvellous bird. The brilliance of this bird is well captured in many of the photographs but the text is full of information about Peregrines from everywhere in the world where they occur.

Chapters cover falcons in general, an introduction to this species, flight, diet, breeding behaviours and characteristics, movements, friends and foes and population numbers and trends. It feels like an encyclopedic coverage and the book is packed with information, but information delivered in a very palatable form.

I am a fan of this species but I can’t say I want to know everything about it – although if the time comes when I do, I’ll know to look here – but the book is a good read. As a biologist, rather than as a raptor fan, I enjoyed reading the account of sexual dimorphism in size of this species (and many other raptors, but not a great many other species of bird) and found the explanation of competing explanations for the phenomenon to be very good.

I’ve often seen figures for percentage success of attacks on prey for this species, and for other raptors, and, even on my experience of the birds in the field, have wondered quite how observers decide what is a serious attempt at a kill and what amounts to a test or just larking about. I remember watching a Peregrine on Speyside, something like 50 years ago, chasing a Swift around and it looked like it was playing. Now, whether or not it could really have been described in that way, it would have been questionable as to how many, if any, attempts were real ones.

The chapter on friends and foes was very interesting, and covers the species’s interactions with other birds and mammals, some of which is fascinating. Ten pages in the Population chapter are devoted to human persecution of Peregrines in the UK, much of it on areas managed for grouse shooting. I was unaware of the 2011 paper by McMillan in Scottish Birds and I am now very keen to read it. But the discussion ranges widely over the studies and, no surprise here, comes firmly to the view that deliberate and systematic illegal killing of protected wildlife is rife on grouse moors.

This is a phenomenal piece of work, from which 10% of the sales income will be donated to Raptor Aid.The cover? Interesting choice – I’d give it 7/10.

The Peregrine Falcon by Richard Sale and Steve Watson is published by Snowfinch Publishing.