Falcon fan club: Birds hatching in Adelaide CBD caught on camera
The next generation of the world’s fastest animal is hatching on a city rooftop – and the heart-warming event is being captured on film. Watch the video.
News of the latest member of a local falcon family was shared by The Adelaide City Council on social media on Monday after a private company with a direct view of the nesting site on their building caught the moment on camera.
The team on falcon watch filmed one of four eggs that have hatched so far, and a council spokesperson said they were “excited” to share the news with regular updates planned over the following weeks.
“Celebrating biodiversity within the Adelaide CBD and Park Lands is a key objective of the City of Adelaide,” the spokesperson said.
“We look forward to continuing to share this wonderful chapter unfolding within our urban ecosystem.”
Green Adelaide advised that peregrine falcons could be spotted across the city and once they had chosen a nesting location tended to stay close by, despite their ability to travel up to 300km per hour.
Green Adelaide Presiding Member Chris Daniels said the organisation was “thrilled” at the latest hatching news.
“The observation highlights how even our urban environment can provide important habitats for wildlife, in this case the fastest bird on earth,” he said.
“In cities, tall buildings mimic cliff faces that peregrine falcons would usually call home, and from these sites they can scan the landscape for their prey which can include a diverse range of birds, from parrots to pigeons.”
Peregrine falcons also have been known to prey on tree martins, the small bird species known for roosting in the Leigh Street trees. The tree martins caused a stir this year after the council’s netting plan sent the birds into the mall, where they died in numbers.
The netting was later removed from the Leigh Street trees, and a wildlife specialist, Green Adelaide and the council said they would work to address issues around the bird migration.
Daniels said despite the falcon’s speed, they were not a threat to city-goers.
“While peregrine falcons are swift predators, their behaviour rarely brings these birds in close proximity to people, and so they don’t pose a threat,” he said.
“This is a really wonderful example of nature co-existing with city life, and just one of the indicators of healthy birdlife in the heart of Adelaide.”
Helping SA’s peregrine falcons
Green Adelaide says peregrine falcon females generally laid three to four creamy-white eggs with rust-coloured speckles and would incubate the eggs while the male sourced food. When the young hatch, both parents hunt to provide food.
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By six weeks of age the young were fully independent, and learned to catch their prey from watching their parents. The young usually reached sexual maturity at two to three years, and could then live up to 15 years. Although young peregrine falcons could disperse widely, they often returned home to breed when they got older.
Raptors such as peregrine falcons were vital to Adelaide showing signs of a healthy ecosystem, and feed on pest species such as feral pigeons, according to Green Adelaide.
In South Australia peregrine falcons were considered rare and protected under the South Australian National Parks and Wildlife Act.
In urban environments, they tended to nest on the ledges of high-rise buildings, “so you can help them by avoiding any building maintenance while they are trying to raise a family”.
Rat poison can kill birds like peregrine falcons – Green Adelaide advised looking into bird-friendly controls.
