Episode 3: Peregrine Falcon

In this podcast episode, Buckley introduces her guest, her mom Ashley, who is an expert on Peregrine Falcons. They discuss the falcon's ability to fly extremely fast, reaching speeds up to 240 miles per hour. They also talk about sexual dimorphism, where the females are larger than the males, and the falcon's range, which includes every continent except the tropics and Antarctica. They mention that Peregrine Falcons eat medium-sized birds like pigeons and starlings, and how they have become urban wildlife in cities. They briefly touch on falconry, which was a popular sport in medieval times, and end with a quiz for the listeners. Welcome to Birding with Buckley and Sullivan. Okay, so Sullivan, our co-host, will not be joining us today. I mean, he was there a second ago, but that was just for the intro. Now, he's leaving because he wants a break, but I've brought in my mom, who will be being a guest. Her name is Ashley Gresham, and what makes her ever more qualified to talk about Peregrine Falcons is the fact that for three weeks before she went to college, she lived in a place in Tampa, Florida called Peregrine Perch. This makes her just really an expert on the subject. Okay, so Peregrine Falcons are- Time out, would you like me to say hi? Oh, yeah, yeah. Hi, I'm Ashley, Buckley's mom. Yes, she is. Okay. So, Peregrine Falcons are noted, notably, able to fly extremely fast. They can move the fastest out of any animal in the animal kingdom. They can fly the fastest, and they fly faster than a cheetah runs, way faster. How fast? The fastest speed that a Peregrine Falcon has ever recorded in its stooped eye, which is how it hunts, it flies really high in the air, tucks its wing in and uses the force of gravity when it flies down. It doesn't fly, it dives down, called a stoop dive. Was at a speed of 420 miles per hour, or if you're really like a metric kind of person, 390 kilometers per hour. That's right? Is that the math right? I did not, I'm not a calculator. Okay. I'm sorry, you do have a master's degree in statistics. Okay, so, good plug for me. Thanks, everybody. Okay, so, Peregrine Falcons have something called, I don't know if you've heard this term. Have you heard this term before? Sexual dimorphism? I have. Yes, so, what does it mean? I bet you could tell me more about it. Okay, so, sexual dimorphism is when one animal, one sex is bigger than the other. Like the Peregrine Falcon, the females are larger, closer to 47 inches, and the males are closer to 29 inches. Kind of like Black Widow. Yeah, I guess you could use that as an example. Oh, that brings us on to our next topic, which is the range of the Peregrine Falcon. Peregrine Falcons pretty much live in any part of the world, except for the tropics and Antarctica. So, in pretty much every continent, any place that food is abundant, which their food is, that brings us to the next topic, which is appetite. Their food includes... Hold on, is it the same species that lives all over the world? Well, yes, the Peregrine Falcon lives all over the world. Oh, that was a dumb question. Yeah, it was. I thought there might be like a Southern Peregrine Falcon or an Asian Peregrine Falcon. I don't think there is, I'm not really sure about that, but yeah, I'll have to fact check on that. Okay, so, yeah. The appetite, they eat medium-sized birds, including pigeons and starlings are their main food source, and they were reintroduced into the cities and areas when the pigeons started to move there. That's, you know, urban wildlife that we're talking about. Did you say they eat falcons? No, they eat pigeons and other medium-sized birds like starlings, like Eurasian starlings. I was really confused for a minute. Okay, so, yes. They're urban wildlife, which means that they are reintroduced into an area by humans and they live there, which is including like cities, like that's what an urban wildlife is. Like pigeons are urban wildlife, starlings are urban wildlife, so. Rats. Are urban wildlife, and also a, yeah, yes, they kind of moved down into, they kind of followed the pigeon, as the pigeons started to move towards the cities, the same changes started happening to them, and they realized that they can get a lot of the, they can get a lot of the pigeons that live in the city, they can eat a lot of them now. You know, there's that one smart guy, he was like, we're gonna move to the city and we're gonna eat all the pigeons, you know? You know, it's kind of weird that you started your podcast talking about how much you love pigeons and went straight to their predator. Well. Or your next bird. I kind of like, I really love the peregrine falcon because of its speed. Like, that was one of my top five animals, you ever heard that question? If you had to come back from heaven as an animal, which animal would you be? You know, that peregrine falcon is probably near the top of my list along with the caucan or whatever it was called. They got 360 degree vision. Yeah, I mean, the owl only has 270 degree vision. So that's a little con of the owl. Oh, okay. All right, next. Yeah. The Latin name is falco peregrinus, which means. Falco peregrinus. Falco peregrinus. Oh, I forgot to ask, do you have any questions about really what I've covered so far? No, but do you have a joke? Oh yeah, I forgot the joke. Okay, so. So, um. Yeah, um. You forgot the joke, so I guess you're. Yeah, I'm talking about the joke. Just gonna have to. Do it, tell it now. Okay. Really, on this podcast, we don't really. You understand what I was trying to do? Go ahead. We don't really have a script, you know, we just wing it. There we go, there we go. Yeah, that's funny, right? All right. I was trying to set you up. Okay, okay. So, um. I thought we used it. All right, all right. So, um. Yeah, the falco peregrinus. Falco is your genus. I always remember when you're classifying an animal, you always go, did King Philip come over for good soup? Domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus. I appreciate that, but if a king was coming to my house, I wouldn't serve soup. I feel like that wouldn't really be top of the list. Yeah. Anyway. So, yeah. Um, oh, well. Talking, speaking of kings. Now that brings us to one of the uses of peregrine falcons in early times. They were kings? Not, not necessarily. Oh, okay. But, falconry, which was known as the sport of kings. It's, um. Really? I really have to look more into this subject. This is kind of something I really, this is one of the things. Does the King of England currently practice falconry? I don't really know that myself. But, um, yeah. One of the things I didn't really go in depth in when I was researching for this podcast. Yeah. So, falconry is you, the falcon is tied to a little string. You train it to, that's attached to you. I think it has a special name. But, um, the, but, uh, in, you train them to hunt the small birds. That was, that's pretty much the, that's what falconry is. Yeah, falconry happened a lot in early times, like medieval times, which is, I like to compare falconry to jousting, which were both very popular sports in medieval times, but they died in popularity because jousting was considered too dangerous. And falconry is, in some people's minds, animal cruelty. And I'm not really a big fan myself. I don't really know. Especially when they made the falcons joust. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Is it quiz time? It is quiz time. Yep. All right. Okay. Question number one. What is it called when one sex is bigger, or like, is the different size than the other? Okay. We've got some, we can use it. Okay. The answer is sexual dimorphism, is what that term is called. I've never really looked into that. I just saw it on a short little video, and yeah, I thought that was very important to note in the quiz. Okay. Question number two. What is the fastest speed ever recorded by an animal? I mean, of course it was made by a peregrine falcon, but how fast did the peregrine falcon move to break that record? The answer is, oh, this is kind of a tricky question because I gave you the wrong answer at the beginning of the episode. So the answer is 240 miles an hour. Yeah. I'm not really one for the metric system, so I'm not really gonna say. Question three. What is the Latin name of a peregrine falcon? Yeah. Oh, hold on. I gotta do the thinking, the thinking music. All right. Do you have any guesses, Ashley? Ashley. Oh, well, you are Ashley. Tell me you're not. Falco peregrinus. Falco peregrinus is the correct answer. So if you guys like Ashley here, then you got it right. All right. So that closes our podcast. I'm sorry that I said the speed wrong at the beginning. It's not 420. I had it wrong on my paper. It's 240. I'm very terribly sorry. Okay, they'll forgive you, but thanks for letting me be a guest. Yes, yes, always. And yeah, see us next week with Birdie with Buckley, and Sullivan could be here next week, but he's not with us right now. Okay. Goodbye.