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The fastest animal alive, and it only reaches that speed falling.
The stoop is the whole design. A peregrine climbs, folds, and drops at speeds recorded beyond 380 kilometres per hour, striking prey with a clenched foot. Bony tubercles in the nostrils baffle the airflow so the bird can still breathe at that velocity, and a third eyelid clears the eye mid-dive.
Peregrines collapsed across Europe and North America for the same reason bald eagles did, and recovered by the same route: the DDT ban, plus captive breeding and the reintroduction of young birds to historic eyries through hacking. Cities turned out to be an unplanned bonus — ledges on office towers and cathedrals read as cliffs, and feral pigeons are abundant prey.
The open shelf
More frames of the peregrine falcon
Streamed live from the Commons Quality Images archive, eighteen at a time. Tap any frame to study it — each remains its photographer’s.
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Developing the next eighteen…
