Some Things I Learned About Falcons
I spent more time handling falcons this year than I ever have before. I've always been a little worried about it - suppose I hurt a falcon? Drop a baby? Damage some feathers? However, babies needed to be held this year, and I was there to do it. I thought I'd pass along some of my experience, starting with...

Is it a Boy or a Girl?
Female peregrines are bigger than male peregrines. However, size alone may not be enough to determine sex. We banded four babies in Duluth this spring - three larger and one quite small. All had nice crops and white down, with the tips of a few tail and juvenile feathers just starting to show on the larger falcons. The smallest falcon had no juvenile feathers, thinner down, and preferred to lay rather than sit or stand. Since the only obvious size difference was due to age, not gender, how could we determine sex?

Bob had Rob and I line the three larger falcons up. He told us to listen to the falcons and look at tarsus and foot size. The females have deeper, raspier voices, thicker tarsuses, and larger feet. Take a look at the photograph. Using feet and tarsus thickness alone, who do you think is a girl? Rob and I identified the genders seperately and than conferred with Bob. Fortunately, we'd all reached the same conclusion: three girls and one boy.

Getting the gender right isn't just important for recordkeeping reasons. Since females do have thicker legs than males, male bands tend to be too snug for them. The picture to the right is Husker, a Woodman Tower falcon from Nebraska. Husker was accidentally banded as a male. We trapped her in 2006 to determine whether or not her tight bands had caused any injury or leg deformation. They hadn't. However, Bob suggested it was best to band the very few truly questionable falcons (and there are very few) as females to avoid the situation.

How Do I Hold A Falcon?
Some people seem to have a knack for holding baby falcons. Then there are those of us who always seem to end up at least a little bloody - or, even worse, who loose control of the foot just as the bander reaches for a leg. Whoops! Sorry about that scratch! Baby talons are little, but still sharp enough to draw blood. And it seems like every clutch has at least one feisty falcon who is ready to take on the world with his or her feet.

The drawing above shows how to correctly hold a young falcon. You have to hold the falcon snugly, so it can't get its wings loose or flap around uncontrollably. You need to avoid damaging blood feathers: these feathers, which are still growing, are rooted more deeply than the feathers of adults. Damage will delay their growth and the young falcon’s flight. However, you also have to be careful not to hold the falcon too snugly, since it is possible to compress the falcon's chest, suffocating it.

I spent an awful lot of time worrying about how I was holding baby falcons. Was it too tight? Was it too loose? How upset would Bob/Rob/Dave be if they got nailed again? I think they are easiest to handle at 18-23 days. Younger than that, and they are almost too small. Older than that, and they can get real feisty!

Oh, and we don't wear gloves since it is easier to feel and react to the young falcon without them.