Prairie Falcon

Last September a prairie falcon was spotted not flying well and a concerned citizen called us to assist it. Prairie falcons are swift fliers maneuvering with great agility and this one trying even though it was injured and not totally successful. Beth retrieved it and brought it to the center. One of the wings was severely bruised but fortunately not broken. It is always interesting to have a type of bird we don’t admit very often. Prairie falcons are about the same size as peregrine falcons but tend to weigh less and are lighter colored. They have malar stripes on their cheeks, a tomial tooth for killing prey and long pointed wings with a sharp taper that make high speed pursuit and stooping (diving) possible which are characteristic of falcons. This one was a very vocal bird that had an opinion on most everything. We thoroughly enjoyed this bird while it was in our care. It took until the end of March for it to regain enough strength to be released. Dani, a dedicated Montana Wild Wings volunteer, took it back to the area it came from to release it. It had a strong release flight landing on a fence post to reorient itself before taking off to see what else there was to see.