These are birds with an image so imposing that a firm of personal injury attorneys is probably contemplating its use in an ad campaign. Falcons are here thanks to pigeons. Without pigeons, downtown Phoenix would be without that special drama of interspecies prey and predator. Hildebrandt and others have been studying the falcons as part of the Game and Fish Urban Peregrine Falcon Project for several years. Peregrines winter here.
Pairs apparently come back year after year.
Hildebrandt speculates that it's too hot here in the summer for rearing chicks. Both the snowbirds who flee and the tough birds who stay the summer can identify with that. Peregrines will never provide adequate pigeon control say the bird men. They only pick off an occasional pigeon here and there. But falcons could die from eating poisoned pigeons, which should preclude any more talk of such draconian population control.