The Peregrine: Master hunter of the skies

by K. G. H. Munidasa

In the olden day, FALCONERY (hunting game with trained hawks) was a "Royal Sport" in England and Scotland, where only the kings and nobles participated. Along with the hunting dogs, trained hawks were deployed to hunt partridges or even bigger game.

The method was to realise the hawks in the area earmarked for hunting. They would fly up to a great height and circle in the sky ever watchful of what is happening on the ground below. The moment the dogs flush any game, the hawks would stop their glide, and swoop down like feathered bolts and attack the animals fleeing for life. Among the Scottish hunters of old, the Peregrine Falcon is said to have been a popular bird.

The Peregrine falcon

The Peregrine Falcon Flaco peregrinus is found almost throughout the world, in several geographical races. The typical race peregrinus is a regular winter visitor to the whole of India and Sri Lanka. It arrives in the island about October to April, and it prefers the Low-Country Dry Zone, normally frequenting the coasts, larger tanks and lagoons, and occasionally straying on to upcountry districts. In some years, one or two would take up residence in the Colombo city, making their headquarters in some lofty buildings. In October 1977 a Peregrine settled down in a storied building closed to the Royal Park, behind the golf course. It made it a practice to visit the empty balconies of the golf course to pluck and prey on the birds found there.

In March 1973 a Peregrine was reported from the Colombo Fort area. It frequently perched for long periods at top of the radio mast of Police Headquarters, and was found to be particularly active whole morning, noon and evening.

According to a Mr. Flindel, who had been on the lookout for years, this was the first time since 1969 that a Peregrine was seen in Colombo. In the January number of the "Time" magazine it had been mentioned that man-made changes in the environment, mostly the use of pesticide, had reduced the total population of Peregrines in America to a mere 200 pairs, hence a special society was formed, the sole aim of which was to ensure the survival of this beautiful falcon in that part of the New World.

An observation in the Colombo City, carried in the Ceylon Bird Club notes for December 1974 under the name of Thilo Hoffmann, Chairman/Secretary of the Club, goes as follows "The last day of the year gave me the pleasured of observing an Eastern Peregrine, for over one hour, sitting at the top of the high telecommunication mast, which towers over the secretariat. The falcon spent the time there, preening itself, spreading its wings and tail, and in between looking around keenly".

Once in Hambantota a Peregrine was reported to have chased and catch a smallish bat, which had apparently been roused out of its hiding place in a tree, in broad daylight.

During my spell of employment in the Gal Oya Sugar Industries in the late 1960s, one morning I was travelling by push-cycle to my work-site.

As I passed a stretch of paddy fields a bulbul suddenly flew across the road crying fitfully, and jumped headlong into the thicket. Pond herons, parakeets. prinias and many other birds in the neighbourhood followed suit.

All of a sudden, like a bolt from the blue, a Peregrine swooped down, caught one of the parakeets in the air and dashed off with it. I was watching from approximately ten yards distance. The parakeet wailed and the captor bit at its head to silence it.

In most areas in Sri Lanka, the Eastern Peregrine's place is taken by its local counterpart, the Shahin Falcon or Indian Peregrine Falco Peregrinus peregrinator Sundevall, a scares resident in the island.

In form and silhouette it much resembles its migratory relation, but differs by its very dark upper plumage and the deep chestnut underparts. However, in pursuing flying prey it displays all the skills and power of the former.

The race found in Sri Lanka breeds in Northern and Central Asia. In The Manual of the Birds of Ceylon, Second Edition 1931 W. E. Wait says "Though normally breeding in the far north, there seems no doubt (vide Legge p. 103) that Layard shot a pair breeding in the Jaffna Peninsula. The nest was a rough structure of twigs in the top of a palmyra. The 3 to 4 eggs were reddish-white, freckled with brick-red or reddish-brown and measured 2.2 by 1.65 inches".

However, G. M. Henry in his A guide to the Birds of Ceylon 1955, First Edition p.236 has said thus, "Layard about a hundred years ago, claims to have found a pair of Peregrines nesting on the leaf bases of a Palmyra palm near Point Pedro, but he apparently did not take the eggs, and it is possible that he made a mistake, as this race is most unlikely to nest in Ceylon; the possibility of its occasionally doing so should, however, be borne in mind".

Of the birds of prey, the world over, the Peregrine is the most dashing, powerful and brave. Its method of capturing the prey, which consists chiefly of fast-flying birds, is a miracle of speed and precision. "The prey is pursued in the air, outmanoeuvred, and finally cut down by a lightning swoop from above, the hand claw being the instrument of execution" (Henry)

Yet, the Peregrine is not cruel as it looks. It is only obeying nature. It usually kills surely, and its prey knows nothing of the slow, protracted fear that freezes the victims of Nature's other hunters.

Notwithstanding this attitude, the Peregrine has sometime been accused of killing prey for the sake of sport. One observer saw a Peregrine strike down many birds in quick succession. "There were hundreds and thousands of these plump little sea birds (puffins) flying to and fro beneath the bird of prey as it sat on a prominent crag. At intervals of a few minutes it left its perch, flashed downwards, and a few moments later a lifeless puffin was tumbling down towards the sea, while the triumphant hunter sallied forth back to the perch".