A peregrine falcon hunts by diving down from high above. Reports say a peregrine falcon diving after prey can reach more than 200 miles an hour. It eats mostly other birds. In cities, peregrine falcons eat pigeons. A peregrine has very sharp eyesight and strong, sharp talons on its feet. It weighs at most about 1.5 kilograms, or 3.5 pounds. Its wings spread about 3.5 feet from tip to tip. Female peregrine falcons are bigger than males.

A peregrine falcon does not build a nest. It lays its eggs in a scrape, a small dip in the soil or gravel of a ledge. It lays two to five eggs at a time. A male brings food to the female and to the young at the nest. Young peregrine falcons are ready to fly about five to six weeks after they hatch. Peregrine falcons nest on high cliffs. In cities, they nest on ledges of tall buildings and on bridges.

Peregrine falcons once ran into trouble. In the middle of the 1900s, the pesticide DDT made peregrine falcon eggshells thin. The eggs broke while the parents sat on them. The United States banned the use of DDT in 1972. Biologists raised thousands of young peregrine falcons in captivity and released them into the wild. In 1999 the peregrine falcon was taken off the United States list of endangered species, after its numbers had grown back.

Now let's see where peregrine falcons live and how far they go. Peregrine falcons live on every continent except Antarctica. They like open country. Many peregrine falcons migrate, but some stay in one place all year long. Peregrines that nest on Arctic tundra and winter in South America can fly more than 15,000 miles in a year. Some falcons stay and some go, and all of them are birds of wide open places.

Words to know

• pesticide: bug killer
• scrape: small dip
• captivity: not wild
• migrate: travel seasonally
• endangered: nearly gone