Why do Peregrines take racers by preference? (1 Viewer)

[Jane Turner]

I've been recording the hunting strategies and success rates of the local Peregrines for three years now. I've seen a little more than 100 attempted and successfull kills.

About half the attempts were made against Calidrids, nearly as many made against assorted pigeons with single kills of Herring Gull (aftermath witnessed only) Skylark, Grey Plover, Woodcock and Curlew, by a particularly hungry female!

The success rate against waders was about 1 in 8, this despite one particular male with an 100% strike rate using stealth tactics against high tide roosting Knot for an autumn.

Against pigeons the success rate was closer to 1 in 3, though none of the 10 attempts I saw against Woodpigeon and only one in 9 of Collared Dove Attacks were successful. In contrast 15 of the 30 attempts on Feral Pigeons resulted in a kill. There is a large local population of Feral Pigeons - its my fault they are suppoted by the grain I put down for finches which seems to attract racing pigens on a regular basis. Despite the collection of rather floridly coloured and corpulent local Feral Pigeons, the Pergerines seem to find it easier to catch the racers. In addition to my rather subjective observation of the flock I have checked 9 of the corpses left on the sandbank that the local birds choose as a plucking site. All these birds were racers as judged by the proliferation of leg jewellery they carried.

I guess its either that racers are weakened by being made to home, or have lost the native wit and understanding of other bird calls that the Feral flock has retained. Its noticeable that the when eg local starlings or hirundines sound the "Peregrine alarm" the Feral pigeons stay low and vanish whereas the racers go on death-inducing flights off over the beach.

 

[IanF]

A very interesting read and insight into the hunting activities of these birds. They aren't that common in my area though we did have a couple around for a while last Summer and one this Spring.

 

[nirofo]

It's because they are easier to catch.

nirofo.

 

[Anthony Morton]

Contrary to popular belief, pigeon racing does not take place all year round. It usually begins about now (mid-April) and ends around mid-September. As racing pigeons are only exercised around their home loft for the rest of the year, it would be helpful to know if there is a peak time when they are being killed by the peregrines in question, or whether it is a purely random pattern?

 

[Screech]

Hi Jane, Interesting thread.
I had a Racing Loft for 6 years, flying young birds,(birds of the year), and old bird series.
A well managed pigeon loft would never allow pigeons free access to forage the countryside. Number 1, good breeding stock costs money. Here in US a single pedigreed stock bird from reliable "winners" can exceed $100-500 dollars. Number 2, disease and vermen could be p[cked up and be brought back to loft. Sanitary conditions are maintained daily as a safe guard.

As a Loft owner, your birds should be either in the loft, out flying or racing. Birds are controlled by feed, taught at a young age to come to the food rattle and whistle. At the end of excersising the flock, the birds are called in and fed.
I believe the racing birds you see are young birds that lost their way during the racing season or someone that keeps birds in an open loft. Birds with multiple bands are birds bred to fly in "special races", 300 miles most likley, with big $$$$ rewards.

Raptors learn early on when you train your birds and show up like clockwork for a free meal. I was always torn between the loss of a good bird and the prowness of the hawk. The loss of a few birds came with the territory.

 

[Jane Turner]

Bob

The corpses are almost invariably multi-ringed birds, but then again so are most if not all of my visiting pigeons (except the resident flock). Perhaps its not surprising as my local patch is a magnet for navigation failures!

 

[Gerry Hooper]

The Peregrines on the coast here seem to think Racers are easy pickings and go for them often.
The pair of Peregrines in Exeter take all sorts of species,suprisingly Feral Pigeon is less than half their diet.

 

[leighjauncey]

I've been watching a pair here in Torbay and the flight behaviour or the various pigeon types would support Jane's observations. The wild woodpigeons fly very low, hugging the contours of the cliffs and headland, in the last couple of seasons I've not seen a peregrine even attempt one seriously. The resident feral birds fly a lot higher but rarely straight and level for long, I've seen the pair working together hunting these, if it is a flock of pigeons, even though they might miss initially I've never seen them fail totally they always end up successful, if not on the initial stoop then eventually in that particular hunt. Racing pigeons prove to be the easiest for, whilst they are fast, they seem to have had most of their natural predator avoidance techniques bred out of them and tend to fly in convenient straight lines giving the stooping falcon every advantage. Whilst the falcon has been incubating I've watched the tiercel catch several tempting titbits for her - most are too small to identify but I've definitely seen him chasing rock pipits out over the sea and watched a breathtaking stoop which resulted in him plucking an unsuspecting robin from the air which he then proceeded to carry off proudly to the falcon - I couldn't see her so wasn't sure whether her calls were of admiration for such a delicacy or disdain for such a tiny morsel!

 

[Ian Holbrook]

Jane, whilst not an expert myself I have spent a lot of time studying urban peregrines in areas where there are obviously a greater number of feral pigeons and I would agree with your observation that they clearly prefer racing pigeons to ferals. On Liverpool Docks I recovered a number of corpses and every one was ringed and curiously everyone one was a same year bird, ie in 2002 and every ring was a 2002 ring. That means that the prey selected is probably a young bird and probably on one of it's first flights. The pair of peregrines in Liverpool are surrounded by literally hundreds of ferals with a large number breeding within the immediate area of the peregrines and I have never seen one chased other then by the newly fledged falcons. I would best guess that the fact that the ferals are fantastic fliers with loads of experience and very streetwise has something to do with it and maybe more importantly that the majority of the ferals don't look 100% like the age old primary prey of the peregrine, the stock dove whereas the racers look much more like their ancestor. Ratcliffe (The Peregrine Falcon) suggests that pigeons account for upwards 70% of peregrine kills and are definitely a meal of choice for the peregrine. In summary I would say that peregrines clearly prefer pigeon and racers just happen to be better looking and easier to catch.

 

[Jane Turner]

I guess the balance here is tipped by there being 200,000 waders on the beach as an alternative.

 

[Rob Smallwood]

I don't know why they choose them - but I recently saw a letter in the Manchester Evening News "protesting" at the suggestion of someone supplying an artificial nest site for the Peregrines that have taken up residence in Manchester City Centre because of their habit of taking "Racers".

It seems to me that if you want to benefit from the pleasure of racing pigeons, you have to accept the loss - especially to a native predator.

I for one know which I prefer to see in the sky!

 

[Ian Holbrook]

No wonder you see so many peregrines Jane. If you check your records Jane and split them into Pigeons, Passerines, Waders, Gulls & Terns, Ducks, Auks & Petrels, Game Birds and Other (Owls, Raptors etc) then you might have the highest recorded percentages for waders as prey nationally. The North of Scotland has the highest percentage but that is only marginally over 10%. The one thing that is surprising is that the Wood Pigeon (very plump and tasty looking bird) is taken in such small numbers given its similarity to the ordinary pigeon and the large numbers of them everywhere.

 

[Jane Turner]

There is a worry that I see a disproporionate number of wader kills - since I usually see Peregrines when watching waders.

 

[Anthony Morton]

QUOTE=Ian Holbrook

The one thing that is surprising is that the Wood Pigeon (very plump and tasty looking bird) is taken in such small numbers given its similarity to the ordinary pigeon and the large numbers of them everywhere.

Although I have no experience of this myself, one school of thought claims that the 'flashing' effect created by the white wing and neck markings on a woodpigeon in flight have the effect of breaking up its outline (silhouette?) sufficiently to confuse an attacking peregrine.

 

[The Tom]

Peregrine nest sites

I don't know why they choose them - but I recently saw a letter in the Manchester Evening News "protesting" at the suggestion of someone supplying an artificial nest site for the Peregrines that have taken up residence in Manchester City Centre because of their habit of taking "Racers".

It seems to me that if you want to benefit from the pleasure of racing pigeons, you have to accept the loss - especially to a native predator.

I for one know which I prefer to see in the sky!

Dear Rob as a pigeon fancier myself I realise why fellow fanciers object to these nest sites as you say yourself these are Artificial .Peregrines are a natural species but rarely nest in towns and cities unless encouraged to do so this takes the bird from its natural habitat . Losing racers to raptors is a part of pigeon racing but lets not move the goalposts .
Peregrines are a wonder to behold but let them alone to find thier own areas to live and hunt otherwise they will become no more than circus performers to be ogled by a public more interested in the kill than the beauty of the bird .

 

[Jane Turner]

QUOTE=Ian Holbrook

The one thing that is surprising is that the Wood Pigeon (very plump and tasty looking bird) is taken in such small numbers given its similarity to the ordinary pigeon and the large numbers of them everywhere.

Although I have no experience of this myself, one school of thought claims that the 'flashing' effect created by the white wing and neck markings on a woodpigeon in flight have the effect of breaking up its outline (silhouette?) sufficiently to confuse an attacking peregrine.

From my small set of observations, they do seem much more adept at side stepping Peregrines than racers....which just carry on in a straight (suicidal) line and are far more likely to dive into a bush.... I've had a Collared dove hide under me in the past!

 

[The Tom]

Peregrines prefere racers

I've been recording the hunting strategies and success rates of the local Peregrines for three years now. I've seen a little more than 100 attempted and successfull kills.

About half the attempts were made against Calidrids, nearly as many made against assorted pigeons with single kills of Herring Gull (aftermath witnessed only) Skylark, Grey Plover, Woodcock and Curlew, by a particularly hungry female!

The success rate against waders was about 1 in 8, this despite one particular male with an 100% strike rate using stealth tactics against high tide roosting Knot for an autumn.

Against pigeons the success rate was closer to 1 in 3, though none of the 10 attempts I saw against Woodpigeon and only one in 9 of Collared Dove Attacks were successful. In contrast 15 of the 30 attempts on Feral Pigeons resulted in a kill. There is a large local population of Feral Pigeons - its my fault they are suppoted by the grain I put down for finches which seems to attract racing pigens on a regular basis. Despite the collection of rather floridly coloured and corpulent local Feral Pigeons, the Pergerines seem to find it easier to catch the racers. In addition to my rather subjective observation of the flock I have checked 9 of the corpses left on the sandbank that the local birds choose as a plucking site. All these birds were racers as judged by the proliferation of leg jewellery they carried.

I guess its either that racers are weakened by being made to home, or have lost the native wit and understanding of other bird calls that the Feral flock has retained. Its noticeable that the when eg local starlings or hirundines sound the "Peregrine alarm" the Feral pigeons stay low and vanish whereas the racers go on death-inducing flights off over the beach.

Dear Jane
I think the reason racing pigeons are the prefered choice of Peregrines is manyfold . Normally racers are either exercising round the lofts or training or racing ,peregrines because of this know there is an availability of prey at loft sites or on race routes and will soon realise that an abundance of food exists in these areas .
Also because of the domestication of the racer its street savy has been eroded , like all animal athletes the racer is trained to race or in this case fly as quickly from point A to B as is possible and becomes focused on his job .
this gives the peregrine an edge which he uses well .
Older racers that have had encounters with raptors seem to learn of the dangers and are more difficult to catch and usually only fall victim when tired after a long flight when thier consentration is not what it should be .
Young birds are a different matter and when attacked by raptors panic and become much easier targets ,
Feral pigeons are more of problem for the peregrines because they see them on a daily basis and become adept at keeping out of harms way if you are in the Birkenhead area you will see that the Townies now roost under the flyovers an option not available to the racer .

 

[Joern Lehmhus]

Hi all,

when being at the Islands of Neuwerk and Scharhörn near the mouth of the Elbe river (german north sea coast) in spring, summer or autumn (several occasions); I saw quite high numbers of dead racing pigeons which obviously were drowned; and also several very weak birds on the Islands themselves. All those birds, at any visit to the Islands, were racers with multicoloured bands-according to previous mails they must have been in a race?
Interestingly many of those were from England- Is there a race over the north sea from Germany to England?
The surviving birds that had reached the islands were allways very weak (several of them could only fly a few meters when they were first seen; some of them on the beach were even caught by hand (to prevent the tourists dogs! from killing them), put into the stables and fed with mixed grains- after a few days these were much better, flying well, and therefore were freed again.
If this is a regular practice in racing-and it happened regularly there- there must be many exhausted, easy to catch racers around.
We found a few kills of racers (6 or 7), very likely made by the local peregrines, but over the years and different visits the number of drowned racers was around 90. This seems quite a lot of loss, is that normal?

The other thing-flight style of racers was generally very straight, as also mentioned by others.

 

[Nightranger]

Jane - a slightly pedantic point but you said that there was (a close to) 1 in 3 success rate against racers whereas the ratio was 15 in 30 for ferals. 15 in 30 = 1 in 2 and that makes the peregrine strategy overall more successful with ferals. However, it is a small point and I would be interested to see comparisons in data for urban populations judged against coastal birds. I would also be interested to see what the juvenile peregrine survival rate is like for urban nests. Racers are mostly kept under good conditions but feral come into contact with all sorts of human muck and some pathogens could potentially be harmful to peregrines too.

As an aside (this is not a dig a pigeon racers, most of whom are sensible people), I heard an interesting case of a peregrine taking a racer. The pigeon in question had been at liberty for at least five years in a feral flock when it was taken by a peregrine. It wasdecided not to report the ring details but I cannot help wondering if this bird unwittingly was added to the evidence against peregrines from the racing community. In fact, there are cases of mass losses during races with an infamous case some years ago in France (15,000+ birds lost in one day) due to bad weather. Inevitably, peregrines sometimes get the blame for killing a racer that has long since failed to return to its loft.

 

[Steve Lister]

, I heard an interesting case of a peregrine taking a racer. The pigeon in question had been at liberty for at least five years in a feral flock when it was taken by a peregrine .

If a 'racer' is at liberty for at least five years and in a feral flock then surely it is a 'feral' and no longer a 'racer'. isn't it?

Steve