CCI.B2o35G8 



A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE 

 DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS 



Official Organ of the Audubon Societies 



Vol. XIV March— April, 1912 No. 2 



The Duck Hawk on the Palisades 



By WILLIAM COGSWELL CLARKE, New York City 



IT may interest many in Manhattan to know that occasionally a Peregrine 

 Falcon, or Duck Hawk, comes to town for the Pigeons that have their 

 homes on certain buildings in the city. 



In late December, a Falcon flew over as I crossed Fifth Avenue at Fifty- 

 sixth Street. The sun of the early forenoon shone directly on the bird, flying 

 rapidly just above the housetops, upward and away. As the bird passed, the 

 rich dark plumage, barred in part with brownish yellow, was clearly in view 

 against the blue of the -v^inter's sky; the rapidly beating wings and the tail, 

 widespread for the moment, were presented to good advantage. In January, 

 in the middle of the day, a Peregrine for some twenty minutes widely circled 

 over Sixth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street. 



This bird can easily come down from the Palisades, across the Hudson, to 

 the center of the city in ten minutes, he travels with such vigor and swiftness. 

 The proximity of the city's Pigeons, a ready food-supply, makes it more easy 

 for the Falcons to pass part of the winter, at least, near one of their summer 

 homes. 



In late August, twenty-seven years ago, some haymakers in a Jersey meadow, 

 just west of the Palisades, were amazed to see a Duck Hawk, that was pursuing 

 a bird, plunge nearly at their feet into the long grass and bushes. The Falcon, 

 in his haste, became entangled, and was caught before he could free himself. 

 From his plumage and apparent inexperience, he was presumed to have been 

 a young one of that season. 



We kept him for several years in a cage so large that the bird was able to 

 exercise, flying from perch to perch. No fear entered into his makeup; his 

 equipoise was under no circumstances disturbed. A Red-tailed Hawk, if 

 captured, will show a fighting front, but will at the same time manifest fear; 

 never so a Peregrine Falcon. What respect this bold and self-possessed bird 

 must have commanded in its intimate association with knights and ladies in 

 the ancient days of Falconry! 



Our Peregrine, perched upon my wrist, was never rough or at all familiar. 



