Our first sign of falcon presence is a lone pigeon feather that floats down like a sinister snowflake from the top of the Alcatraz lighthouse, the highest point on the island.
“I bet that top walkway is just littered with pigeon carcasses right now,” says Lidia D’Amico, a biologist whose office is tucked into an old cannonball room in the former Alcatraz Fortress.
The lighthouse has become the lookout spot and breakfast nook of choice for Alcatraz’s resident peregrine falcon family. Lawrencium (aka Larry), daughter of famed Berkeley falcon Annie, settled on the island in 2020 with her mate, which D’Amico and her colleagues are calling Richard—after the Mohawk activist who led the Native American Occupation of Alcatraz in 1969. Larry and Richard are the first peregrines in recorded history to hatch chicks on Alcatraz, tucked into a cliffside cave with a perfect view of the Golden Gate Bridge and easy access to the pigeons of San Francisco. “It’s really prime real estate for a falcon,” says D’Amico.
With the help of a nest cam, which started live streaming this April, D’Amico has been able to watch this year’s crop of four falcon chicks, hatched in early April, go from tiny balls of white fluff to fledglings taking their first, clumsy flights. Now, they’re scruffy-feathered, full-sized adolescents, as voracious as human teenagers. Approaching the lighthouse, we hear the fledglings before we see them: they just ate, and they’re already screaming hoarsely for more food. We spot Larry, perched above the lantern room, eyeing the island from her avian panopticon. She lifts off and does a few lazy loops around the island; when she returns empty-taloned, the fledglings scream some more, and chase her in circles around the walkway, shuffling along inelegantly with hunched shoulders.
How (and When) to Creep on the Falcons of Alcatraz
The interesting season for the Alcatraz falcon nest cam (installed this year) is March–June, mainly. Eggs are laid in March. Fledglings leave the nest in late May or early June, and sometimes come back to sleep there for a while afterward.
At this time of year, Alcatraz buzzes with the noise of nearly five thousand breeding birds. Snowy egret chicks, already rocking frazzled white hairdos, gurgle in the trees; cormorants in neatly-spaced nests sound like small, growling dogs. A horde of hollering gulls escorts a glum-looking turkey vulture off the island.The gulls are the alarm system of Alcatraz, chasing away vultures and birds of prey—but they tolerate the resident falcons. “They seem to have an understanding that the peregrines are the apex out there,” says D’Amico.
D’Amico manages several monitoring programs for seabirds on Alcatraz, spending nearly every day out on the island during breeding season. Doing the gull census can take hours; counting the peregrines is a little easier, with a single family all at one address.
Peregrine falcon populations crashed due to DDT-contaminated prey in the 40s, 50s, and 60s; in 1970, the California population was estimated at just five pairs. Thanks to a DDT ban and proactive breeding programs, peregrines came back from the brink. Now, there are at least 800 pairs in California. The Bay Area peregrine population is back up to pre-DDT levels, or maybe even higher—in part thanks to Annie—but populations were so low for so long that there are still big knowledge gaps about what a healthy falcon population looks like. Now, Larry’s family is providing interesting new data—like on the timing of egg-laying and hatching, how varied their diets are (D’Amico was surprised to see the peregrines occasionally snatching gull chicks out of their nests), if adults ever tolerate the presence of adult offspring, and how they defend territories from other raptors. And, of course, how they learn to hunt.
Since they fledged in late May, the four peregrine chicks have been in the thick of the chaos, going through falcon flight school. Learning how to be the fastest animal on Earth takes practice: young falcons spend a few months hanging around their parents and practicing aerial maneuvers that would make a fighter pilot jealous.
Peregrine falcons are specialized bird-hunters, and they catch their prey with dare-devil dive-bombs called “stoops.” By folding in their wings and legs, they form a perfectly aerodynamic teardrop that blasts out of the sky, often reaching more than 200 mph. Most birds couldn’t even breathe at those speeds, but peregrines are adapted for it –a bony tubercle in their nose slows down the air as it enters their lungs, functioning just like the “baffles” on a jet engine.
When they intercept their target, they ball their feet into tiny fists and punch their quarry out of the air. This dramatic collision allows them to take out birds many times their size. Once, a park worker saw Larry hurtle out of the sky and strike a full-grown Canada goose that was sitting on the dock minding its own business. The goose died instantly. “It’s kind of taken on myth status,” says D’Amico.
The fledglings aren’t ready for a real dogfight yet, so they still rely on mom and dad for food. Up on the lighthouse, Larry spots something in the distance that our human eyes can’t see, and shoots off like a bullet towards San Francisco with her famished fledglings in hot pursuit. Walking, the fledglings lurched like drunkards; in the air, the 2-month-olds are already skilled athletes, matching Larry’s swerves and dodging gulls like hotshot “Top Gun” trainees. Within seconds, we can no longer make them out—and then, just as fast, Larry is winging back—with a fat pigeon dangling from her talons. Most likely, she just got a prey handoff from Richard, who’s hunting in downtown San Francisco.
As if to celebrate second breakfast, two of the fledglings launch into their most spectacular aerial maneuvers. They spiral around each other like figure skaters, pulling off spin moves, near misses, spiral dives. They reach their talons towards each other and snatch them away at the last second; they swoop low and show us their brown-speckled bellies.
D’Amico cheers. “I can’t believe they’re all grown up!”
Over the next several weeks, the young falcons will continue to hone their aerial combat skills with flight games, high-speed chases, and pigeon-snatching lessons. Their parents will start to drop dead birds mid-flight for the youngsters to catch out of the air. Soon, the fledglings will start to take their own field trips to San Francisco, under the watchful eye of Larry or Richard.
In a few months, the fledglings will leave the island to wander in search of their own territories. The first year of a falcon’s life is the hardest, and roughly half of the juveniles won’t make it to maturity—200 mph dives and midair hunts are hard when you’re still learning the controls. If they can get through that first year, though, their life expectancy is high. Either way, they will likely never return to Alcatraz.
With luck, these four will grow into goosekiller badasses like their mom, but they’ll have to keep practicing. After scarfing down some pigeon parts, one fledgling annoys the gulls for fun, swooping too close and darting away, as if trying to provoke a game of tag. For now, they’re definitely still kids.
