How Peregrine Falcons Actually Hunt

A peregrine is the fastest bird alive in a dive, and the dive is the least interesting thing about him. He misses far more often than he connects, he can't out-turn a starling, and the speed everybody quotes costs him the better part of a kilometer of height to reach. What he actually has is a steering rule — the same one engineers put into guided missiles — and one hard sideways swerve breaks it. This video breaks down how the interception really works, why a flock of sandpipers will stay in the air for six hours rather than sit on a shoreline, and the numbers showing that the bird which dies is almost never a random bird. Filmed nowhere: every frame is drawn from the research. Which predator should we break down next? Tell me in the comments. Subscribe if you want more of these. Sources: Dekker, Hunting Tactics of Peregrines and Other Falcons, PhD thesis, Wageningen University, 2009. Alerstam, Radar observations of the stoop of the peregrine falcon and the goshawk, Ibis 129, 1987. Tucker, Gliding flight: speed and acceleration of ideal falcons during diving and pull out, J. Exp. Biol. 201, 1998. Tucker, Cade & Tucker, Diving speeds and angles of a gyrfalcon, J. Exp. Biol. 201, 1998. Tucker, Gliding flight: drag and torque of a hawk and a falcon with straight and turned heads, J. Exp. Biol. 203, 2000. Tucker, Tucker, Akers & Enderson, Curved flight paths and sideways vision in peregrine falcons, J. Exp. Biol. 203, 2000. Brighton, Thomas & Taylor, Terminal attack trajectories of peregrine falcons are described by the proportional navigation guidance law of missiles, PNAS 114, 2017. Brighton et al., Raptors avoid the confusion effect by targeting fixed points, J. Exp. Biol. 224, 2021. Mills, Hildenbrandt, Taylor & Hemelrijk, Physics-based simulations of aerial attacks by peregrine falcons reveal that stooping at high speed maximizes catch success, PLoS Comput. Biol. 14, 2018. Kane, Fulton & Rosenthal, When hawks attack: animal-borne video studies of goshawk pursuit and prey-evasion strategies, J. Exp. Biol. 218, 2015. Papadopoulou et al., Emergence of splits and collective turns in pigeon flocks under predation, PLoS Comput. Biol. 18, 2022. Palleroni, Miller, Hauser & Marler, Prey plumage adaptation against falcon attack, Nature 434, 2005. Santos et al., Phenotype-dependent mortality in pigeons under raptor predation, Scientific Reports 5, 2015. Procaccini et al., Propagating waves in starling, Sturnus vulgaris, flocks under predation, Animal Behaviour 82, 2011. Hemelrijk, van Zuidam & Hildenbrandt, What underlies waves of agitation in starling flocks, Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 69, 2015. Storms, Carere, Zoratto & Hemelrijk, Complex patterns of collective escape in starling flocks under predation, Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 73, 2019. Cresswell, Surprise as a winter hunting strategy in sparrowhawks, peregrines and merlins, Ibis 138, 1996. Drewitt & Dixon, Diet and prey selection of urban-dwelling peregrine falcons in southwest England, British Birds 101, 2008. DeCandido & Allen, Nocturnal hunting by peregrine falcons at the Empire State Building, Wilson Journal of Ornithology 118, 2006. Time, Nocturnal hunting by an urban peregrine falcon during the dark season, Ornis Norvegica 48, 2025. Kettel, Gentle, Yarnell & Quinn, Breeding performance of an apex predator in urban and non-urban environments, Urban Ecosystems 22, 2019. Kauffman, Frick & Linthicum, Estimation of habitat-specific demography and population growth for peregrine falcons, Ecological Applications 13, 2003. #peregrinefalcon #falcon #birdsofprey #predators #animalbehavior #wildlife #huntdoctrine #starlings #murmuration #raptors #ornithology #apexpredator #natureexplained #animaltactics #empirestatebuilding