When I first heard the name “duck hawk,” I visualized some sort of hybrid bird – a mix of a hawk and a duck. It’s not a very majestic image – maybe a hawk with a big, Daffy Duck beak or a big butt better suited for floating than soaring – but all that changed when I learned that “Duck Hawk” is just a quaint, old name for a peregrine falcon. I didn’t know much about falcons, but my image of them was sleek, fast hunters who live by catching and killing other animals. That put them in the same category as eagles and hawks which is pretty elite company if we’ll ignore the fact that eagles frequently feast on dead, rotting fish, the aquatic equivalent of roadkill.
There are three main falcons in the eastern US: American kestrel, merlin, and peregrine falcon. These three are sleek, modest-sized birds with black-and-white face markings like the rock band Kiss. The kestrel and merlin are about the size of a blue jay while the peregrine is about six inches longer, about the size of a healthy crow. I’ll occasionally see an American kestrel sitting on a power line overlooking a field. They have rusty-orange colored backs and those distinctive Kiss face markings. Merlins are rare in our area, passing through occasionally during spring and fall migrations.
Peregrine falcons are permanent residents in the eastern US. In fact, they are permanent residents across almost the entire planet, being one of the most widely distributed animals in the world. But that doesn’t mean they are common. There are only three well-documented, breeding pairs in Tennessee: one on Little Duck Hawk Ridge, one near Charlies Bunion, and another pair at the Chickamauga Dam in Chattanooga. (Personally, I’d bet there are one or two more couples in the Smokies that the NPS isn’t telling us about to protect their privacy.) The owners of Rock City are participating in a falcon “hacking” (the release of captive falcons) program at Lovers’ Leap, so if that project is successful, it will give us another reason to See Rock City.
Ironically, aside from the banning of DDT, the other factor that has strongly contributed to their comeback has been big cities with tall buildings. For example, the first nesting pair of peregrines in the state of Ohio was found in Toledo in 1988; afterwards, they spread to Cincinnati and Cleveland. Chicago and Indianapolis both have peregrine families living in their downtown areas. Not very inspiring stuff. In my mind, that diminishes the glamour of these birds a bit because they appear to occupy the same environmental niche as pigeons, their favorite food.
I’d prefer that they live only in wild, lonely places that are hard to find, but that isn’t how Mother Nature and urban architects wrote the script. They nest on rocky cliffs and ledges, but apparently the concrete walls of bridges, dams, and skyscrapers fit that description well enough to satisfy the falcons. The fact that cities lack the primary predator of falcon chicks – the Great Horned Owl – also makes high-rise, urban areas favorable falcon habitat.
Beside their near extinction, peregrines’ other claim to fame is their speed. On a good, downward dive toward their prey, they can reach speeds of 200 mph, making them the fastest animal in the world. In the wild, these falcons will swoop down like a dive bomber and crash talons-first, mid-air into their prey. They seem to prefer birds that fly in flocks rather than alone, so it’s like shooting fish in a barrel, which isn’t very sporting but is ruthlessly efficient, which is what falcons do.
They have been captured and trained for at least three thousand years, and in the days before guns, they were a useful way of hunting birds. During the Middle Ages in Europe, falconry became “the sport of kings,” a form of entertainment for the elite, perhaps arising from the fact that falcons would sometimes nest on the walls of Medieval castles and cathedrals; although, the fact that only the wealthy nobility would have the leisure time to pursue sport of any kind would also have been part of the equation. So, in spite of their penchant for eating urban pigeons, they do have a trace of nobility in their blood.
So, as we stood at a wide spot on Big Duck Hawk Ridge, looking upon the southern slopes of Mount LeConte, near Peregrine Peak, the Duck Hawks made their appearance. The entire show lasted only 5 minutes, but it was the grand finale to an already fine day. We had grandstand seats for a brief, simple encore by a couple of birds, but it was a show that had been repeated for hundreds or thousands of years, at this very spot with no human witnesses, and then had come to a sudden, almost-permanent halt.
We didn’t see them fly with mind-boggling speed. They didn’t capture any prey. They simply circled and soared, enjoying the fact that they were home again, alive and well in a beautiful place – exactly as God had intended.
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In this article I mentioned two “well documented” breeding pairs in the Smokies, but that might not be exactly true. The family on Little Duck Hawk is well documented and even advertised. I’ve seen an occasional reference in NPS literature about the falcons on this ridge. The second pair near Charlies Bunion is a bit more enigmatic. In the fall of 2010 several of us on a ridge just east of Charlies Bunion witnessed three peregrine falcons harass and attack a hawk that had soared into their territory between us and the Bunion. (It was a great bird-watching moment for all of us; even the non-bird-watchers among us were greatly impressed.) From what I’ve read, protecting territory is “consistent with nesting behavior.” So we definitely saw three peregrines in the area – at one point, they flew right over our heads, within about 50 feet; we could even hear the wind in their wings as they turned and dove – but we don’t really know for certain that they are nesting in the area, nor do we know if the NPS has actually studied them to determine if they are nesting and reproducing. In fact, I’ve never seen any official mention of them. But they are definitely there.
There’s also talk of a pair of peregrines that were spotted in 2003 near the cliffs at the western end of Greenbrier Pinnacle, in the area called the Cat Stairs. I’ve also been told that the trail to the top of Greenbrier Pinnacle was closed sometime in the 1980s because of a “hacking” program that was being carried out at that time. (Hacking is raising the falcons in captivity and then releasing them into the wild, hoping they’ll survive, nest, and reproduce.) I’ve spent a good bit of time in this area of the park – it’s one of my favorites – but I’ve never seen falcons there.
Because this part of the park is difficult to access, and because it’s one of my favorites, I desperately want the falcons to be there. So, I intend to spend some good, quality time there in the next few years, keeping my eyes open and looking up. The fact that peregrines have a distinctive call while flying means that I’ll keep my ears open, too.
So if you visit Alum Cave or Charlies Bunion (or Greenbiar Pinnacle), keep your eyes and ears open. With a little luck you’ll see one of the best aerial displays this side of the Mississippi.
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