National Wildflower Centre .Liverpool.
Falcon General name given for Falconidae , a heterogeneous family of long-winged birds of prey closely related to the Hawk. The size of a Vulcan varies from six and a half inches , falconet to the 24 in. gyrfalcon, from the swift merlin to a sluggish caracar .
True falcons, are distinguished by their notched beaks , are widely distributed . In flight there wing beats our rapid and powerful, and a they suite from hundreds of feet at speeds of up to 175 mi. an hour to capture their prey is chiefly birds and small mammals.
Usually they kill cleanly and breaking the back of their victims'. Some falcons eat insects; the long legged caracaras ( found in South America, with one species, the audubon's caracara or Mexican buzzard, ranging to the extreme south United) also on carrion and sometimes robbing other birds of their prey.
The cosmopolitan peregrine falcon (unromantically called duck call in the United States) the gyrfalcon of the Arctic tundra have been used in falconry.
The commonest and smallest American falcon is the sparrow hawk (related to the European kestrel). Others are the pigeon h
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