Urban Peregrines

This detailed account of urban Peregrines, focusing especially on city-dwelling birds in south-west England, is timely in view of the species’ continuing inclination to nest in built-up areas. The book also provides a much wider overview of the Peregrine’s biology as a whole. The author is well qualified to do just that, having studied zoology at Bristol University. Urban Peregrines contains a great deal of information, in easily readable form, on the peregrine’s way of life in our towns and cities, with much attention given to its prey selection and hunting and feeding there. The author touches on the recent decline in the British uplands, due to killing on grouse moors but apparently also to decline in avian prey species elsewhere in the hill country. Thus he flags up the growing importance of the lowland segment of the species’ population, nesting on manmade structures and clearly very much at home there. The book is well-endowed with an excellent selection of photographs, in most cases usefully placed on the same pages as the relevant text and in themselves telling us much about the Peregrine’s place in the natural world. If there were to be a second edition of this work, it would be useful to have a table setting out succinctly the known population levels of urban Peregrines in different parts of our planet. My only question mark on the book’s content is the assertion that Peregrines in Scotland may start to show some signs of concern due to people disturbance from a few miles away. Urban Peregrines is to be highly recommended, not least for its relevance to the ebb and flow of the bird’s fortunes in the first part of the 21st century. -- Patrick Stirling-Aird * Scottish Birds * There are certain birds that everybody seems to love, or at least have a fascination of. One of those birds is the Peregrine Falcon. Known for its speed and hunting prowess, it brings awe to just about anyone who is fortunate to encounter one. The book Urban Peregrines by Ed Drewitt takes a look into the lives of these fascinating birds in an alternative habitat – the urban (and suburban) areas of Europe. Drewitt does also touch upon other areas, including the United States, but the examples and anecdotes are primarily from Europe, and mostly Great Britain. Overall the book is well written and has a good flow as if Drewitt were having a personal, but well-informed, conversation with you about Peregrine Falcons. He has years of experience researching these incredible birds, and he is very enthused to share that knowledge with you. Plus, there are plenty of gorgeous (and sometimes gory for the sake of telling the truth) photos included to keep you visually stimulated. He starts by giving you the basics of the Peregrine – explaining its features and characteristics that make it well suited to high speed pursuits of prey. The overall adaptability of these birds have allowed them to thrive not only on wild landscapes and cliffs where it occurs naturally, but also in cities and towns that are populated by more people than wildlife. In some regions, there are extremely high percentages of peregrines nesting in urban areas, like Germany. This benefits the peregrines and researchers alike as the researchers can more easily monitor these birds, which then means deterring predators. Drewitt takes you through the lifecycle of the peregrine in detail, going over some interesting facts about breeding behavior, including cooperative breeding in which older male offspring sometimes stay with the parents to help rear newer chicks. He also goes over their hunting behaviors, which surprisingly includes nocturnal hunts. Also, the author makes the reader aware of the conflict between some individuals, such as pigeon fanciers (those that breed and raise racing pigeons) and peregrines. Although I found much of what Drewitt had to say as very interesting and informative, as a general audience reader, I also found that there was a lot of details in the many anecdotes that didn’t really didn’t add to my understanding. It was sometimes a bit distracting. I think if I were a budding peregrine researcher or environmental educator, then this information would have been more relevant to me. The section on learning how to set up a peregrine watch and ringing (banding) them would be great for anyone who wants to start up research on peregrines or other birds of prey. Overall, I think the author’s enthusiasm and dedication for these magnificent creatures shines through. He highlights a bird that is fascinating, sharp, and handsome, and makes the science of them accessible to the public. And I’m always for revealing behaviors and attitudes that that we can work on in order to make more conscientious decisions that affect conservation. Generally, it seems most people embrace the peregrine falcon for the awesomeness that it is, and Urban Peregrines teaches us more about them and how we can live in harmony with them. -- Maureen Leong-Kee * Hipster Birders * Another book on Peregrine Falcons Falco peregrinus? Well yes, but one with a difference, and surely there can’t be too many books about ‘the ultimate bird’. This is a fascinating volume, written with an infectious enthusiasm that will appeal to experienced watchers and beginners alike. Following a foreword by Chris Packham, the book is split into 11 chapters, covering areas such as ‘How to study Peregrines’, ‘People and Peregrines’ and ‘Myths about Peregrines’, as well as such thorny issues such as ‘Peregrines and Pigeons’. Throughout, the focus is on studying Peregrines in urban environments, on ringing, prey species and how to collect and identify prey items. The closer relationship with humans brought about through their use of towns and cities has, in part, allowed us to study urban Peregrines in greater detail, and this comes across well in this book. Facts about the Peregrine are presented in an informative and interesting way that appeals to a wide audience: for example, Peregrines in a stoop fly in a curve rather than straight at their prey, and the G-force they experience is considerably more than a fighter pilot! Each of the very readable chapters is brimming with facts and complemented by photographs of a high standard that beautifully illustrate its pages and complement the adjacent text. I found few mistakes, although the maps on pp. 136–137 would have been better with only one arrow illustrating the direction of migration. I personally would not have included the ghoulish photo of the Common Gull Larus canus on p. 78, and occasionally I found that similar information was reused in different parts of the book. This book provides sound recommendations for those who want to set up Peregrine projects in towns and to study both the birds and their prey. I have personally been involved with urban Peregrines for seven years but still learnt much from the wealth of knowledge contained in this book, and have already returned to re-read some chapters a second time. With the Peregrine population increasing in southern England, and many birds adapting to an urban setting, what better opportunity can there be to get young people involved in wildlife than by introducing them to the fastest bird in the world? Here it is, right on their doorstep; and this book certainly helps the process. Anyone with an interest in Peregrines will want to buy this book, but especially those who want to be involved in an urban Peregrine project, and I can highly recommend it. -- Mike Wallen * British Birds * For most of my life, Peregrines Falco peregrinus were considered to be rare, nesting remotely in wild parts of the uplands or on tall coastal cliffs. They were symbols of wilderness, rarely seen except by those making a special effort. They sometimes appeared in towns, and on rare occasions had nested there, but it was not until the late 1990s that they occupied urban areas in a big way, colonizing many towns and cities, and nesting on the tallest buildings, such as cathedrals. There are now around 100 known pairs nesting regularly on buildings in Britain, including around 50 pairs in city centres. The birds have suddenly become urbanized. They accept high-placed nestboxes of various kinds, and many have been watched through web-cams, giving round-the-clock footage of behaviour. Any city dweller with time to spare can pause and watch the birds themselves, or with the aid of a video-screen, their behaviour at the nest. Experienced observers are often on hand to offer help, and thousands of people have visited cathedrals for ornithological reasons. This book is essentially an account of one man's experience of urban Peregrines, setting out what he has learned from his own observations or gleaned from his interactions with other Peregrine enthusiasts, mostly in other cities. The book is nicely written and seems to be intended mainly for people interested in starting similar studies themselves. It gives useful hints on matters such as how to design and erect nestboxes, how to find and identify prey remains, and how to ring the young, and just as important, how to work successfully in places full of people. The book has many good-quality colour photographs, showing different aspects of structure, plumage and behaviour. One surprise is the wide range of prey species eaten by urban Peregrines, not just the expected pigeons (Columbidae), but many other birds, apparently intercepted as they travel over cities, including terns (Sternidae) and Kittiwakes Rissa tridactyla, waders, crakes and rails (Rallidae). It seems that hunting at night from a high perch is fairly common, as the lights of the city make some low-flying birds visible from below. Night hunting is thought to explain the presence among kills of Woodcocks Scolopax rusticola, Corn Crakes Crex crex, grebes (Podicipedidae) and other nocturnal migrants. Another interesting finding is the extent to which Peregrines kill and cache prey for future use, taking advantage of good days (or nights) to stockpile prey which are then consumed on bad days. One case of incest was recorded (son mated to mother, having replaced father, checked by DNA analysis), adding to several other examples recorded elsewhere. Despite the vast amount of research on Peregrines in the past, city nesting has provided opportunities for recording aspects of behaviour difficult to watch in more natural settings, and has revealed some newly discovered aspects of Peregrine behaviour, all ripe for further more detailed study. How much you like this book will depend on what you expect to get from it. What you will not find is any discussion of why urban nesting took off when it did, or of how it spread across the country. Nor will you find anything on the nesting success of urban Peregrines, and how it compares with previous findings from more natural settings. In fact, you will find no quantitative data or analyses of any kind. It is not that type of book. But let us hope that the author or some other enthusiast will pull together the newly collected information on urban Peregrines, recording the onset and spread of this new behaviour, before it disappears with fading memories. -- Ian Newton * IBIS * Following the cessation of persecution and DDT poisoning, peregrine falcon populations have increased everywhere and they have colonised the cities of Europe, North America and Australia. This success in seemingly hostile urban environments requires specific adaptations. These adaptations are the focus of the author, an enthusiast who has spent years following peregrines in several English towns. All the details of their social, reproductive and hunting behaviour are described simply (Drewitt is not a scientist) but precisely and thoroughly, allowing the reader to understand why and how this remarkable falcon benefits from the often artificial urban environment. His descriptions are fascinating: the peregrine's extremely varied diet, nocturnal hunting for migratory birds, the storage of numerous surplus kills, the incessant comings and goings of different individuals and the movements of these supposedly sedentary birds, and the observed cases of trios, polygyny or incest, and other little known aspects of the life of peregrines. It is also, however, a detailed manual of how to observe and study the species, how to collect feathers when deploying tags and nesting sites, and how to manage threats that affect falcons through good relations with the general public. It is also an opportunity to take stock of the myths surrounding the relationship between peregrines, pigeons, gulls and corvids. The photos are numerous, if small, and generally very instructive, and reference is made to the situation in other countries, even if there are no precise references (even the bibliography at the end is succinct). The reading of the text is made easier by this, but it is not possible to deepen one's appreciation of the comparisons made by referring to them. All in all, a book that is easy to read, stuffed with practical information and original observations, essential reading for those who are interested in peregrines, even if it does deal almost exclusively with the English population. -- Jean Marc Thiollay * ORNITHOS * Urban Peregrines is published with near-perfect timing, arriving during the final stages of the 2014 UK Peregrine Survey. The recent fortunes of Peregrines in the UK have been varied, but the towns and cities focused on within this book provide the scene for a remarkable and ongoing success story. Ed Drewitt gives us a book written in interesting and conversational prose, with a wealth of observations on a wide range of Peregrine-related topics. There is particularly satisfying detail on the startlingly varied diet of Peregrines living in our cities and also, appropriately, on the ways in which wild Peregrines interact with and are affected by people. The book is copiously illustrated with photographs, not only of Peregrines, but of the birds they eat and the urban environments they live in. I recommend it for anyone wanting to better acquaint themselves with one of our most iconic and charismatic birds. -- Mark Wilson * BTO About Birds * Ed Drewitt's name may be familiar to many people from his writing for BBC Wildlife Magazine, or his pieces on Springwatch. He is also very popular in the Bristol area for the many walks and talks he carries out to help introduce the public to the wonders of natural history in the Bristol area and beyond. Anyone who has been on one of his guided walks or nature holidays will vouch for his knack of engaging his audience and the pleasure he gets in sharing his wealth of knowledge. He now brings these talents to bear in this book on a subject very close to his heart and on a subject he has been studying for over 15 years; the appearance in our urban centres of the Peregrine, a bird that until relatively recently was in serious trouble due to its position at the top of the food chain. The use of the pesticide DDT in the 1960s and 1970s by farmers caused it to enter the food chain as birds ate sprayed crops, leading to the concentration over time of DDT in the bodies of those predators that ate these birds. The most famous side effect of this was the production of eggs with shells that were too thin to survive incubation, but many of the birds died directly from the high levels of the chemicals in their bodies. Happily, following the phasing out of DDT in the late 1970s and early 1980s, this is no longer a threat in the UK as well as the rest of Europe and also the United States, and Peregrines in these regions have bounced back dramatically, giving rise to the phenomenon of the urban Peregrine and the topic of Drewitt's book. His studies of these urban birds has led to some startling discoveries. One of these is the way Peregrines in towns and cities have adapted to use our artificial lighting to hunt at night, as shown by the discovery of feathers from birds that migrate predominantly at night in studies of their kills. These have included Corncrakes, Teal, Woodcocks and Dunnocks. Here is proof that this is a species that is truly living cheek by jowl with us in our urban spaces. As well as discussing new feeding strategies, Drewitt also charts a year in the life of an urban Peregrine, looks at their relationship with humans in more detail and tells us how we can go about getting sightings of these incredible raptors. Despite the the disappearance of the threat of DDT poisoning here, Drewitt also warns against complacency in the ongoing survival of the Peregrine. DDT still used in countries in north Africa is believed to enter the environment and could still be dangerous. A growing worry is the appearance of so-called Persistent Organic Pollutants in the environment; these are flame retardants used in the plastics and textile industries and have already been seen accumulating in the fatty tissues of apex predators like Killer Whales. This newer worry, along with other negative aspects of life in cities for Peregrines is looked at in detail. This is a timely and fascinating book, full of Drewitt's charm and learning. Along side the text are some beautiful photographs from a range of talented wildlife photographers and these complement what is a brilliant and readable addition to the study of raptors in this country. -- Andrew Whitelee * Verdant Wildlife * A fascinating insight into the life of our top urban predator. -- Stephen Moss Peregrines! The biggest urban conservation story to hit our cities is gloriously revealed in this wonderful book. -- Mike Dilger