Adult falcons have thin, tapered wings, which enable them to fly at high speed and change direction rapidly. Fledgling falcons, in their first year of flying, have longerflight feathers, which make their configuration more like that of a general-purpose bird such as abroadwing. This makes flying easier while still learning the aerial skills required to be effective hunters like the adults.
The falcons are the largest genus in the Falconinaesubfamily ofFalconidae, which also includes two other subfamilies comprisingcaracaras and a few other species of "falcons". All these birds kill prey with theirbeaks, using atomial "tooth" on the side of their beaks—unlike thehawks,eagles and other larger birds of prey from the unrelated familyAccipitridae, who usetalons on their feet.
The largest falcon is thegyrfalcon at up to 65 cm (26 in) in length. The smallest falcon species is thepygmy falcon, which measures just 20 cm (7.9 in). As with hawks andowls, falcons exhibitsexual dimorphism, with the females typically larger than the males, thus allowing a wider range of prey species.[10]
As is the case with many birds of prey, falcons have exceptional powers ofvision; thevisual acuity of one species has been measured at 2.6 times that ofhuman eyes.[11] They are incredibly fast fliers, with thePeregrine falcons having been recorded diving at speeds of 320 km/h (200 mph), making them the fastest-moving creatures on Earth; the fastest recorded dive attained a vertical speed of 390 km/h (240 mph).[12]
The traditional term for a male falcon istercel (British spelling) ortiercel (American spelling), from the Latintertius (third) because of the belief that only one in three eggs hatched a male bird. Some sources give the etymology as deriving from the fact that a male falcon is about one-third smaller than a female[18][19][20] (Old French:tiercelet). A falcon chick, especially one reared forfalconry, still in its downy stage, is known as aneyas[21][22] (sometimes spelledeyass). The word arose by mistaken division ofOld Frenchun niais, from Latin presumednidiscus (nestling) fromnidus (nest). The technique of hunting with trained captive birds of prey is known asfalconry.
Compared to other birds of prey, thefossil record of the falcons is not well distributed in time. For years, the oldest fossils tentatively assigned to this genus were from the LateMiocene, less than 10 million years ago.[23] This coincides with a period in which many modern genera of birds became recognizable in the fossil record. As of 2021, the oldest falconid fossil is estimated to be 55 million years old.[24][25] Given the distribution of fossil and livingFalcotaxa, falcons are probably of North American, African, or possibly Middle Eastern or European origin. Falcons are not closely related to other birds of prey, and theirnearest relatives areparrots andsongbirds.[26]
Falcons are roughly divisible into three or four groups. The first contains thekestrels (probably excepting theAmerican kestrel);[17] usually small and stocky falcons of mainly brown upperside colour and sometimes sexually dimorphic; three African species that are generally gray in colour stand apart from the typical members of this group. Thefox andgreater kestrels can be told apart at first glance by their tail colours, but not by much else; they might be very close relatives and are probably much closer to each other than the lesser and common kestrels. Kestrels feed chiefly onterrestrialvertebrates andinvertebrates of appropriate size, such asrodents,reptiles, orinsects.
The second group contains slightly larger (on average) species, the hobbies and relatives. These birds are characterized by considerable amounts of dark slate-gray in their plumage; theirmalar areas are nearly always black. They feed mainly on smaller birds.
Third are the peregrine falcon and its relatives, variably sized powerful birds that also have a black malar area (except some very light colormorphs), and often a black cap, as well. They are very fast birds with a maximum speed of 390 kilometres per hour. Otherwise, they are somewhat intermediate between the other groups, being chiefly medium grey with some lighter or brownish colours on their upper sides. They are, on average, more delicately patterned than the hobbies and, if the hierofalcons are excluded (see below), this group typically contains species with horizontal barring on their undersides. As opposed to the other groups, where tail colour varies much in general but little according toevolutionary relatedness,[note 1] the tails of the large falcons are quite uniformly dark grey with inconspicuous black banding and small, white tips, though this is probablyplesiomorphic. These largeFalco species feed on mid-sized birds and terrestrial vertebrates.
Very similar to these, and sometimes included therein, are the four or so species ofhierofalcon (literally, "hawk-falcons"). They represent taxa with, usually, morephaeomelanins, which impart reddish or brown colors, and generally more strongly patterned plumage reminiscent ofhawks. Their undersides have a lengthwise pattern of blotches, lines, or arrowhead marks.
While these three or four groups, loosely circumscribed, are an informal arrangement, they probably contain several distinctclades in their entirety.
A study ofmtDNAcytochromebsequence data of some kestrels[17] identified a clade containing the common kestrel and related "malar-striped" species, to the exclusion of such taxa as the greater kestrel (which lacks a malar stripe), the lesser kestrel (which is very similar to the common, but also has no malar stripe), and the American kestrel, which has a malar stripe, but its colour pattern – apart from the brownish back – and also the black feathers behind the ear, which never occur in the true kestrels, are more reminiscent of some hobbies. The malar-striped kestrels apparently split from their relatives in theGelasian, roughly 2.0–2.5 million years ago (Mya), and are seemingly of tropical East African origin. The entire "true kestrel" group—excluding the American species—is probably a distinct and quite youngclade, as also suggested by their numerousapomorphies.
Most members of the genusFalco show a "tooth" on the uppermandible.
Other studies[27][28][29][30][31] have confirmed that the hierofalcon are amonophyletic group–and thathybridization is quite frequent at least in the larger falcon species. Initial studies of mtDNA cytochromeb sequence data suggested that the hierofalcon arebasal among living falcons.[27][28] The discovery of aNUMT proved this earlier theory erroneous.[29] In reality, the hierofalcon are a rather young group, originating at the same time as the start of the main kestrel radiation, about 2 Mya. Very little fossil history exists for this lineage. However, the present diversity of very recent origin suggests that this lineage may have nearly gone extinct in the recent past.[31][32]
The phylogeny and delimitations of the peregrine and hobby groups are more problematic. Molecular studies have only been conducted on a few species, and the morphologically ambiguous taxa have often been little researched. Themorphology of thesyrinx, which contributes well to resolving the overallphylogeny of theFalconidae,[33][34] is not very informative in the present genus. Nonetheless, a core group containing the peregrine and Barbary falcons, which, in turn, group with the hierofalcon and the more distantprairie falcon (which was sometimes placed with the hierofalcon, though it is entirely distinctbiogeographically), as well as at least most of the "typical" hobbies, are confirmed to bemonophyletic as suspected.[27][28]
Given that the AmericanFalco species of today belong to the peregrine group, or are apparently more basal species, the initially most successfulevolutionary radiation seemingly was aHolarctic one that originated possibly around central Eurasia or in (northern) Africa. One or several lineages were present in North America by theEarly Pliocene at latest.
The origin of today's majorFalco groups—the "typical" hobbies and kestrels, for example, or the peregrine-hierofalcon complex, or theaplomado falcon lineage—can be quite confidently placed from theMiocene-Pliocene boundary through theZanclean andPiacenzian and just into the Gelasian, that is from 2.4 to 5.3 Mya, when the malar-striped kestrels diversified. Some groups of falcons, such as the hierofalcon complex and the peregrine-Barbary superspecies, have only evolved in more recent times; the species of the former seem to be 120,000 years old or so.[31]
South of the Sahara from Mali eastwards as far as Ethiopia and north-west Kenya. It occasionally wanders west to Senegal, the Gambia and Guinea and south to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Several more paleosubspecies of extant species also been described; see species accounts for these.
"Sushkinia" pliocaena from the Early Pliocene of Pavlodar (Kazakhstan) appears to be a falcon of some sort. It might belong in this genus or a closely related one.[36] In any case, the genus nameSushkinia is invalid for this animal because it had already been allocated to a prehistoricdragonfly relative. In 2015 the bird genus was renamedPsushkinia.[44]
The supposed"Falco" pisanus was actually a pigeon of the genusColumba, possibly the same asColumba omnisanctorum, which, in that case, would adopt the older species name of the "falcon".[37] TheEocene fossil"Falco" falconellus (or"F." falconella) from Wyoming is a bird of uncertain affiliations, maybe a falconid, maybe not; it certainly does not belong in this genus."Falco" readei is now considered apaleosubspecies of theyellow-headed caracara (Milvago chimachima).
^For example, tail colour in thecommon andlesser kestrels is absolutely identical, yet they do not seem closely related.
^IZAN 45-4033: leftcarpometacarpus. Small species; possibly closer to kestrels than to peregrine lineage or hierofalcons, but may be more basal altogether due to its age
^IMNH 27937. Acoracoid of amerlin-sized species. It does not seem close toF. columbarius or the Recent North American species (Becker 1987).
^Ahierofalcon (Mlíkovský 2002)? If so, probably not close to the living species, but an earlier divergence that left no descendants; might be more than one species due to large range in time and/or include common ancestor of hierofalcons and peregrine-Barbary complex (Nittingeret al. 2005).
^"Hieracidea Strickland, 1841".WoRMS - World Register of Marine Species. 26 April 2021.Archived from the original on 2 January 2022. Retrieved8 February 2024.
^"FALNOV.pdf"(PDF).New Zealand Birds Online (published 3 September 2020). 6 March 2013.Archived(PDF) from the original on 8 February 2024. Retrieved8 February 2024. (Text extracted fromGill, B.J.; Bell, B.D.; Chambers, G.K.; Medway, D.G.; Palma, R.L.; Scofield, R.P.; Tennyson, A.J.D.; Worthy, T.H. (2010).Checklist of the birds of New Zealand, Norfolk and Macquarie Islands, and the Ross Dependency, Antarctica (4th ed.). Wellington, Te Papa Press and Ornithological Society of New Zealand. pp. 174–176.)
^Krüger, Oliver (2005). "The Evolution of Reversed Sexual Dimorphism in Hawks, Falcons and Owls: a comparative study".Evolutionary Ecology.19 (5):467–486.doi:10.1007/s10682-005-0293-9.S2CID22181702.
^Jobling, James A. (2010).The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 63.ISBN978-1-4081-2501-4.
^Stevenson, Angus; Brown, Lesley, eds. (2007).Shorter Oxford English dictionary on historical principles (6th. ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.ISBN9780199206872.OCLC170973920.
^abcGroombridge, Jim J.; Jones, Carl G.; Bayes, Michelle K.; van Zyl, Anthony J.; Carrillo, José; Nichols, Richard A.; Bruford, Michael W. (2002). "A molecular phylogeny of African kestrels with reference to divergence across the Indian Ocean".Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.25 (2):267–77.Bibcode:2002MolPE..25..267G.doi:10.1016/S1055-7903(02)00254-3.PMID12414309.
^Griffiths, Carole S.; Barrowclough, George F.; Groth, Jeff G.; Mertz, Lisa (2004). "Phylogeny of the Falconidae (Aves): a comparison of the efficacy of morphological, mitochondrial, and nuclear data".Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.32 (1):101–09.Bibcode:2004MolPE..32..101G.doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2003.11.019.PMID15186800.
^White, Clayton M.; Olsen, Penny D. & Kiff, Lloyd F. (1994): Family Falconidae.In: del Hoyo, Josep; Elliott, Andrew & Sargatal, Jordi (editors):Handbook of Birds of the World, Volume 2 (New World Vultures to Guineafowl): 216–75, plates 24–28. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.ISBN84-87334-15-6
^NNPM NAN 41-646. Almost complete lefttarsometatarsus. Probably a prehistoric hobby, perhaps less specialized for bird hunting: Sobolev, D.V. (2003):Новый вид плиоценового сокола (Falconiformes, Falconidae) [A new species of Pliocene falcon (Falconiformes, Falconidae)]Vestnik zoologii 37 (6): 85–87. [Russian with English abstract]
^Boev, Z. 1999.Falco bakalovi sp. n. – a Late Pliocene falcon (Falconidae, Aves) from Varshets (W Bulgaria). – Geologica Balcanica, 29 (1–2): 131–35.
^Boev, Z. 2011. New fossil record of the Late Pliocene kestrel (Falco bakalovi Boev, 1999) from the type locality in Bulgaria. – Geologica Balcanica, 40 (1–3): 13–30.
^Boev, Z. 2011.Falco bulgaricus sp. n. (Aves, Falconiformes) from the Middle Miocene of Hadzhidimovo (SW Bulgaria). – Acta zoologica bulgarica, 63 (1): 17–35.
^Nikita V. Zelenkov; Evgeny N. Kurochkin (2015). "КЛАСС AVES". In E.N. Kurochkin; A.V. Lopatin; N.V. Zelenkov. Ископаемые позвоночные России и сопредельных стран. Ископаемые рептилии и птицы. Часть 3 / Fossil vertebrates of Russia and adjacent countries. Fossil Reptiles and Birds. Part 3. GEOS. pp. 86–290.ISBN978-5-89118-699-6.
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