Birding

The Queen’s Falcon

August 18, 2024 by Clive Finlayson 6 Comments

The vast majority of Palaearctic birds have now finished breeding and are either heading south, dispersing locally or going into moult. Many of the birds now heading south are in a terrible state, ready to drop the old feathers and replace them with new ones. Some start the moult, then pause it in order to migrate and complete it in the winter quarters. All this makes sense. Migrate south as the days start to get shorter and don’t leave it until it is too late. Shorter days mean less feeding time and you certainly don’t want to have to raise a brood in those conditions. One mouth is enough to feed with the shortening days.

Adult male Eleonora’s Falcon, light morph

But there is one bird that goes totally against the grain and precisely starts breeding right now. I’m referring to the Eleonora’s Falcon (Falco eleonorae). The bird derives its name from Queen Eleonor of Arborea, Sardinia. In 1392 she became the first ruler in history to protect the nests of these falcons against illegal hunters. Sardinia, today, remains a major island for this species, with a very large colony on San Pietro Island (just off the SW coast), that holds 115 breeding pairs in just 7 km of coastline.

Adult female Eleonora’s Falcon, light morph

This bird arrives to the Mediterranean and adjacent islands (e.g. Lanzarote in the Canaries) in late spring from wintering grounds in Madagascar. Eleonora’s is really a large, long-winged hobby, which spends most of the year hunting insects in the air. In fact, that is what they do when they arrive. Many then will go to inland sites where they dedicate their time to catching dragonflies and other large airborne insects. This aspect of their behaviour is not generally known and it is surprising to find that some of the best sites to see this species in the early part of the season are, in fact, well away from the coast.

Adult female Eleonora’s Falcon, dark morph
Adult male Eleonora’s Falcon, light morph

Come August and it’s time to head for the breeding colonies on islands. As September approaches, Eleonora’s Falcons change their feeding habits. Now they focus almost exclusively on hunting small passerines, which they catch in the air, preferably over the sea where the prey has little chance of escape. What they are doing is capitalising on the waves of migratory birds which are leaving the Palaearctic breeding grounds and heading for winter quarters in tropical Africa. This is an opportunity like no other and Eleonora’s has taken it when no other raptor has done so.

Eleonora’s Falcon in its island habitat, with the blue Mediterranean Sea behind.
Subadult male Eleonora’s Falcon, light morph, coming to bathe. Living next to the sea, these falcons regularly bathe, where freshwater is available, to remove the salt from the plumage

Here we have an amazing example of specialised adaptation to a specific food resource. A number of studies at the breeding colonies have revealed the range of birds which Eleonora’s will take. In Essaouira (Mogador), off the Atlantic coast of Morocco, the main prey species were Woodchat Shrike (Lanius senator), Whitethroat (Sylvia communis), Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos) and Common Redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus). At the eastern end of the Mediterranean, in Crete, it was Red-backed Shrike (Lanius collurio), Spotted Flycatcher (Muscicapa striata), Whinchat (Saxiola rubetra), and Whitethroat.

The main threat to shrikes is from the air. Woodchat Shrikes are a major prey of Eleonora’s Falcons breeding in the west of the range.
In the eastern Mediterranean, it’s Red-backed Shrikes that are high on the Eleonora’s Falcons’ menu.

As the chicks fledge, towards the end of October and into early November, adults and juveniles head off for Madagascar to spend the winter catching large insects in the air. Recent tracking studies have revealed that, contrary to what had been once thought, these birds will make a fast, diagonal, crossing of the Sahara to reach eastern Africa and the shores of the Indian Ocean, before the final push to Madagascar. But, for now, they are here with us and we should make the most of enjoying these wonderful birds.

Adult female Eleonora’s Falcon, light morph


Written by Clive Finlayson
Growing up in Gibraltar, it is impossible not to notice large birds of prey, in the thousands, overhead. That, and his father’s influence, got Clive hooked on birds from a very young age. His passion for birds took him eventually to the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology at Oxford University where he read for a DPhil, working with swifts and pallid swifts. Publishing papers, articles and books on birds aside, Clive is also a keen bird photographer. He started as a poor student with an old Zenit camera and a 400 mm lens; nowadays he works with a Nikon mirrorless system. Although his back garden is Gibraltar and the Strait of Gibraltar, Clive has an intimate knowledge of Iberian birds but his work also takes him much further afield, from Canada to Japan to Australia. He is Director of the Gibraltar National Museum. Clive's beat is "Avian Survivors", the title of one of his books in which he describes the birds of the Palaearctic as survivors that pulled through a number of ice ages to reach us today.