Peregrines in the City by Andrew Kelly and Sue Lawson illustrated by Dean A Jones

 

"The tiercel hunts, searching for prey."

What is a tiercel? Where is this huge bird? Where does he take is prey? Is this the place you expect to find a nest?

"She settles back to incubate her clutch. Not all eggs may hatch and not all those that hatch may survive to fledge."

How long does it take to incubate falcon eggs? What does fledging mean?

"The tiercel arrives with the eyases' first meal. He strips meat from bone and delicately feeds the balls of wobbling fluffy down."

Some facts about peregrine falcons:

• They live on every continent except Antarctica
• The have a yellow ring around their eyes, yellow and feet with black talons.
• The female is larger than the male.
• They can reach speeds of up to 300km per hour.
• Falcons eat pigeons, seagulls and other small to medium sized birds.
• Falcons mate for life.
• They lay eggs on high stoney ledges or cliff faces, in hollow trees and on skyscrapers.
• Their nest is called a scrape, the chicks are called eyases.

This book is based on a pair of Peregrine Falcons who nested at 367 Collins Street in Melbourne back in 1991. In 2020 volunteers added raised nesting boxes to the ledge. The same pair have bred chicks since 2017. 

Publisher blurb: As urban development encroaches more and more on wild areas, many species have to adapt to survive. One species that has adapted to city living is the peregrine falcon. Falcons normally nest on high cliffs but in many cities across the world they can be found nesting on tall buildings.

The writing in this book is so powerful as evidenced by the poignant moment at the end when the three young birds leave the ledge and all that is left is one abandoned egg.

This is a fabulous book with such a striking cover. I well remember talking about peregrine falcons with all of the children in my school when Home by Narelle Oliver was short listed in 2007. 

I do wish this book had a glossary. I had to look up ‘tiercel’ and ‘gravel scrape’ and ‘eyases’.  I know some of these are explained on the falcon facts page, but I wanted a quick word list to refer to as I was reading. Here is a review of Peregrines in the City in Reading Time. And here are a set of detailed teaching notes. 

Peregrines in the City was a 2023 CBCA (Children's Book Council of Australia) Notable title (Eve Pownall - Non Fiction). I imagine it would have come close to short listing (6 titles) but was probably 'beaten' by Opal and Dart - a book with truly wonderful bird illustrations.

Recently I watched a video from the Evanston Public Library in Chicago where they also have had a pair of nesting falcons since 2004. Sorry the video on this page is not available in Australia.