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Praitie Falcon

© Fred J. Kane

Prairie Falcon Falco mexicanus

Other Names- The Female Prairie Falcon is sometimes called the American Lanner while the male is sometimes called the American Lanneret.

Bird watchers see the Prairie Falcon only in Western North America, Arizona, Baja, California and Northern Mexico. One other place the Prairie Falcon visits and only during the spring and fall migration is in Minnesota.

The Prairie Falcon prefers to live in open habitats. The bird is a wide ranging inhabitant of native prairie and cropland that includes badlands, cliffs, and isolated buttes in Western North Dakota. Bird watchers see most nesting pairs of Prairie Falcons west of the Missouri River and along the Little Missouri River Valley and neighboring prairie. Most birders see the Prairie Falcon in North Dakota from March until October. If weather causes the falcon to leave their preferred territory, it is a short distance migrant.

The Prairie Falcons bill is sapphire with a dusky colored tip. The top of the falcon's head has dusky brown streaks. There is a dark brown stripe from the edge of its eye to its chin. The feathers on its back and wings are tawny in color and a wingspan of about forty inches. The falcon's belly is whitish or somewhat buff. The chest of the Prairie Falcon is ivory colored with many dark spots. Its legs and feet are colored yellow and its talons are black. The tail has cinnamon coloring with a white tip on the tail feathers. As an adult the Prairie Falcon stands about 1 1/2 feet tall.

In flight the falcon seems lighter and more daring than the Peregrine Falcon. The Prairie Falcon has a daring flight varying with rapid strokes followed by short glides.

The Prairie Falcon withstands both the cold and heat without problems and lives mainly in the dry parched lands of the Great Basin, Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan deserts. Birders observe the Prairie Falcon in small acreage in the Kaibab forest in Arizona. This winter visitor to the Imperial Valley in California also prefers drier, open areas away from water

Much of its searching for food is done within one hundred feet above the ground and includes a sudden straight drop followed by a fluttering flight. Their hunting varries as many different animals are on their menu. The Prairie Falcon spends a lot of time perched on high places so they may watch their field of search. Off they will soar from their perch and glide up to 1,000 feet above the ground and then dive for its prey.

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