NDR: Perigrine Falcons are Cicada eaters.

Ed Askew

Ed Askew

Well-known member
Not duck related really, and unfortunately I don't have a good enough camera to get a picture of this phenomena my wife and I have repeatedly observed this summer. I know there are a lot of amateur bird lovers and some bonafide scientists on this site so I will share this. We always have a pair of Peregrine Falcons nest in a hollow behind our house every year since we first bought this property south of Hattiesburg, MS in 2004. We have lots of different birds, including cuckoos but really love to watch the falcons. Anyway earlier this summer I was alarmed that they might be killing our hummingbirds, as I watched one catch in mid air what I thought was a hummingbird, as that's about the size it seemed to me to be. Anyway the falcon stuck around after he caught it landing on a nearby tree and I was able to go get my binoculars and watch him. He shortly went on to catch another one, and that time I heard the thing buzz in his talons and although I really couldn't visually ID what it was I'm sure it was a Cicada. I haven't spent much time out there since, as it's been hot and I've been up in North Carolina much of the summer, but then yesterday spent a lot of time outside and watch two Peregrines catch Cicadas, over and over. I estimate they catch and eat about 5 per hour. No doubt about it being Cicadas, as they tear them apart and discard much of the exoskeleton, and I have been able to walk down under where they were perching and recover these discarded bits. We have a very high density of small birds around our house and quite a few doves as well so I'm surprised to see these bird killers eating Cicadas. I've seen them kill a few small feeder birds and doves, but it seems insects are the main course for our falcons. Not sure if anyone else has witnessed or heard of them doing this?

Ed.
 
Ed, are you sure they are peregrines? Peregrines are cliff nesters and usually hunt duck sized birds. They are still relatively rare and I don't believe they breed in Mississippi. American kestrels do breed there and are well known for preying on insects. Peregrines are crow sized while kestrels are the size of a bluejay.

Nevertheless, your observations sound fascinating to watch. I am always amazed at the agility and skill of hawks and falcons.
 
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Hi Eric
I bought a little piece of land near Highlands, NC. It's at 4100 ft elevation and it's generally anywhere from 15 to 25 degrees cooler there than it is in Hattiesburg. I move my duck camp (travel trailer) up there in the off season. Since I work 7 on 7 off I leave here the instant I can and drive up there and spend most off my weeks off in the summer. It is absolutely gorgeous up there and makes summers bearable. I have no doubt that eventually I'll be working up there some as well. I think locums is going to be the way to go for hospitalists in the next few years. I'll work around there in the summer and around here in the winter.

Brad
Yeah I know you look at the maps and Peregrines don't breed in Mississippi! They do though. There are no cliffs around here either. They don't even nest on the highest spot, as on our property there's a ridge that's 80 feet higher than the creek, and they're in a big tree next to the creek. There is no doubt these are Peregrines. In fact I was just out back eating a sandwich a couple of hours ago and one was perched on an low branch of a big Hickory about 20 yards away; I got a really good look at him. No doubt. I'll try to take a picture and post it, but I doubt I can get a very good one. They actually breed in downtown Hattiesburg. There's some local government offices that have a walled courtyard in the middle. They nest somewhere on those buildings and feed on the pigeons and when the little falcons fly for the first time they often get down in that courtyard, and they can't fly well enough to fly back up over the wall again, so people have to rescue them sometimes. I've lived out here in the country since 2006 and before that I was closer to town on a golf course, and we had Peregrines that nested sort of in a back woodsy corner of the golf course as well. There's no mistaking them with their call and the way they fly you can identify them a long way off. One day we had one kill a goldfinch that was on one of those sock feeders less than 15 yrds from where we were sitting. We didn't really see him; it was like a bullet came out of the sky and there was just a puff of little feathers where the goldfinch used to be. We had seen him flying around far away a couple of minutes before that happened. I've seen them down in the freshwater marsh in Louisiana in the fall too. Merlins are more common there. We occasionally see a Merlin here in the winter and we have Kestrels too, but don't see them very often. Peregrines are everyday birds for us though and apparently they don't eat what they're supposed to or breed where they're supposed to!

Ed.
 
That is very interesting, Ed. Glad you were able to ID the cicadas and then watch it happen. When you think of the food value and maybe the easiness of the catch, maybe that is why they are concentrating on the insects instead of the birds. Earlier in the summer I am sure the pair probably took their fair share of juvenile doves, etc. which is normal.

This reminds me of the wolf where the average person thinks it is taking large animals for its main diet when in fact they will eat mice if they are around. Normally they are. Just another predator that knows how to take advantage of a good thing.

Cool story and I'm glad you wrote about it. Kestrels eat mainly insects. In the hot dry summers you will see many a grasshopper in their talons.
Al
 
Yeah these birds expend very little energy catching cicadas. They don't fly more than 50 feet to do it. I can tell they're full because they let a lot of them pass. They watch them fly by and once they're past, they come up behind them and grab them in mid flight. Sometimes while they're eating one they'll spy out another one on a nearby tree, go grab it and come back. They do it over and over. The bird we see do it the most I think is a young bird because he's not afraid of us. I can hear his momma call to him back in the woods and see her doing the same thing, just not right in the clearing where we are. It may be a way to train a young bird to hunt. He'll have to move on to bigger things in a month or so because there won't be many cicadas then.

Ed.
 
Ed,

congrats on the other land purchase. Sounds like a slice of heaven. There are tons of locums right now in a lot of hospitals since they don't have to deal with the political crap the hospital trys to shove down the throats of the employed hospitalists. I feel bad for those guys. Then again, it is definitely hit or miss with the Locums they have hired in the past.

Hey, a while back you were posting pictures of the "new duck camp" back in the marsh that you and your brother were working on, along with the generator barge. did that camp ever get finished/used? or did you end up selling it off? Just curious, that was quite the project!!!

Good hunting, youth hunt for my boy starts tomorrow.
 
very cool, we have a bunch of cooper's hawks in new orleans year round. They reak havoc on pigeons. We have a lot of peregrines downtown during the winter.
 
Thanks for posting this Ed, was quite a learning experience for me. Spoke to my wife about, a biologist with a fair amount of falcon experience and her response was "yeah, you didn't know that?" Not common but apparently does happen as you've reported. Pretty cool learning more about those critters. My other pastime is climbing and it's lead to some fun opportunities over the years getting involved in banding them, quite an experience helping the bios do their work.
 
Thanks for that Nick. I was wondering if it was new knowledge; figured it wasn't.

Yeah Eric the duck camp is down there going strong. I had a blast helping to build it and enjoyed it the first couple of seasons. The new lease we needed and build it for is awesome; lots of birds. It's a bit too popular for me though. I'm close to 50 now and going down there and not sleeping for 2 or 3 nights straight, which is what it is, just about kills me. You know Cajuns stay up all night drinking and playing cards then get up and hunt ducks, then fish all day after that. It's our national pastime, but you don't see many guys out in the marsh over 50 and that's why. I just can't do it anymore so I hunt in Arkansas where the ducks are dumb and the hunting is unbelievably easy. My brother is 2 years younger than me but he is flagging. It's going to be my nephew's camp before long if he can hold it together but it's an expensive proposition.

I can see this thing coming with locums. We're having to hire some this fall. We pay them almost double. I'd like to make double my ownself.

Ed.
 
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