Peregrine falcon
Falco peregrinus
A powerful pointed-winged falcon with a dark hood and moustache. Confirmed in Georgia as a year-round resident and passage migrant on the 2024 national bird checklist.
At a glance
Key facts in one look
Diet
Birds in flight
Status in Georgia
Resident and migrant
Size
34–58 cm
Habitat
Cliffs, open hunting ground
Family
Falconidae
Conservation
LC
Human interaction: It is not a threat to people on ordinary encounters. It has strong talons and a powerful beak; pairs defend nests. Do not handle wild birds or approach nests. It is not venomous.
Overview
What is Peregrine falcon
The peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) is a medium-sized diurnal falcon in the family Falconidae. The usual Georgian name is შავარდენი; SABUKO’s checklist uses ჩვეულებრივი შავარდენი. The 2024 annotated checklist of the birds of Georgia codes it YR-R; M: a breeder present throughout the year, and also a bird of passage in spring and autumn. Seasonality is classed as high-quality (code A). Occurrence quality is high (H), with photographic and ringing evidence. Adults are about 34–58 cm long at species level, with a wingspan of about 74–120 cm; females are clearly larger than males. It is not a threat to people on ordinary encounters. IUCN lists the species as Least Concern. The 2024 checklist assigns the same category nationally. It is not on Georgia’s 2014 Red List (Decree No. 190).
Last updated
Gallery
Peregrine falcon in photos
Photo: Juan Lacruz
La Cañada, Ávila ·
Photo: Juan Lacruz
La Cañada, Ávila ·
Photo: Ermell
Franconian Switzerland, Bavaria ·
Photo: Juan Lacruz
La Cañada, Ávila ·
Photo: Nilfanion
White Cliffs of Dover ·
Identification
How to identify Peregrine falcon
A powerful falcon with pointed wings, a dark hood, and a bold dark moustache stripe on a pale face. Adults are blue-grey above and barred below; juveniles are browner and streaked. In Georgia the usual confusion is with other large falcons and with smaller pointed-winged falcons on migration.
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Silhouette: long, pointed wings and a relatively short tail — not the short broad wings and long square tail of a sparrowhawk. Length about 34–58 cm and wingspan about 74–120 cm at species level; females are up to about 30% larger than males. Adults show a dark slate crown and nape (“hood”), a pale cheek with a thick dark moustachial stripe, blue-grey upperparts, and finely barred underparts. The cere and legs are yellow; the eye is dark. A separate measured series from Georgia is not given on this page.
- 02
Juveniles are browner above, with underparts streaked rather than barred, and a less neat hood. Sex in the field is mainly a size judgement. Mediterranean F. p. brookei (the resident form in Abuladze’s Georgia account) is often described as slightly smaller and darker than nominate northern birds; field separation of subspecies on a brief view in Georgia is specialist and not required for species identification.
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Eurasian hobby (Falco subbuteo) is a breeding migrant on the 2024 checklist (BB; M): smaller, with a more slender silhouette and rusty “trousers” in adults. Common kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) is smaller, with more rounded wings in hover and rufous upperparts in males. Lanner (Falco biarmicus; Georgian წითელთავა შავარდენი) and saker (Falco cherrug; გავაზი) are large falcons that can be confused with peregrine; both are scarcer and coded differently on the 2024 checklist (lanner OB; WV; saker OB; M; WV, nationally EN). Saker and lanner usually show a less complete dark hood and different underwing patterns; confident separation needs good views. Sparrowhawk and buzzard are Accipitridae, not falcons. This atlas has pages for Eurasian sparrowhawk and common buzzard; separate pages for hobby, kestrel, lanner, and saker are not yet published.
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It is not a threat to people on an ordinary hike. Leave it alone. A pointed-winged falcon with a black moustache diving on birds over cliffs or open ground is more likely this species than a buzzard or sparrowhawk.
Biology
Habitat, diet, behavior, and conservation
Habitat and range
This page does not colour a municipality-by-municipality map. The 2024 checklist confirms country-level resident and migrant status but does not publish a regional gazetteer. Do not assume it nests evenly across Georgia, including treeless plateaus without cliffs. Abuladze (2017) treats the Mediterranean subspecies F. p. brookei as the year-round resident in Georgia, with local seasonal movements, and nominate F. p. peregrinus as a passage and winter visitor. Breeding pairs use little-visited sites and nest on inaccessible cliffs. He places the upper limit of breeding distribution at about 2,000 m, with most nests usually up to about 1,500 m. Outside the nest season the species may hunt over open country, coasts, wetlands, and towns where prey birds are available. A separate national elevation band for every Georgian region is not published here. The eastern Black Sea raptor bottleneck near Batumi is a documented corridor for migrating falcons generally; this page does not give a separate published peregrine count series for that site.
Diet
There is no separate weighed Georgian diet study on this page. At species level it takes almost exclusively birds in flight — pigeons, doves, shorebirds, ducks, and many passerines — killed with the beak after a high-speed stoop from above. Small mammals and insects appear rarely in species-level accounts; that is not a measured Georgian menu. It is not food for people.
Behavior
It is active by day. The silhouette is a classic falcon: long pointed wings and a relatively short, tapered tail. Level flight is strong and direct; the hunting stoop is a steep dive from height. Species-level literature records stoop speeds well over 300 km/h — those figures are from the wider range, not a Georgian telemetry sample on this page. The usual call is a harsh, rapid “kak-kak-kak” or similar series, more often near the nest. The clip is xeno-canto XC976515 (Stuart Wilson, Yaxley, United Kingdom) — an alarm call, not a Georgian recording. Do not handle it or approach nests. Nests are scrapes or ledges on cliffs; elsewhere in the range buildings and bridges are also used — Abuladze’s Georgia summary emphasises inaccessible cliffs. Species-level clutches are often about three to four eggs; those figures are from the wider range, not a Georgian nest sample on this page. The 2024 checklist treats the species as a breeding resident in Georgia and as a passage migrant.
Conservation
BirdLife International assesses Falco peregrinus as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. The 2024 Georgian bird checklist assigns global and national Red List category LC. Government Decree No. 190 of 2014 does not list this species; related falcons on that legal list include saker (Falco cherrug, CR), red-footed falcon (Falco vespertinus, EN), and lanner (Falco biarmicus, VU). Older Georgian secondary sources that place “შავარდენი” in a national Red Book as nearly extinct pre-date the 2014 decree and the 2024 checklist coding — treat them as historical wording, not current legal status. Abuladze (2017) estimated about 60–80 breeding pairs in Georgia, then considered stable with a slight increase after a mid-20th-century collapse linked to shooting, disturbance, and pesticides. The same abstract estimated autumn migrants of the order of about 300–500 birds in then-recent years (versus roughly 100 in the 1980s) and a wintering population of about 50–70 individuals in some winters. Those figures are period estimates, not a 2020s national census on this page. He named ongoing threats as occasional illegal shooting, trapping for falconry during passage, taking of nestlings, habitat damage, and disturbance at some territories. Do not catch wild birds without a permit. International trade is restricted under CITES Appendix I for the species.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Short answers to the most important questions about Peregrine falcon.
Yes. The 2024 annotated checklist of the birds of Georgia lists it as a confirmed year-round resident and passage migrant (YR-R; M).
Breeding birds use inaccessible cliffs, mostly below about 1,500–2,000 m according to Abuladze (2017). Outside nesting they may hunt over open country, coasts, wetlands, and towns with prey birds. This page does not map every municipality.
Pointed falcon wings, dark hood, thick dark moustache, blue-grey upperparts and barred underparts in adults; juveniles browner and streaked. Hobby and kestrel are smaller; saker and lanner need careful separation.
About 34–58 cm long at species level, with a wingspan of about 74–120 cm. Females are clearly larger than males. A separate measured series from Georgia is not given on this page.
Mainly birds caught in flight after a stoop. Diet has not been studied separately in Georgia on this page.
All year as a resident, plus spring and autumn passage, according to the 2024 checklist. Nominate migrants and winter visitors add to local brookei birds in Abuladze’s account.
Yes. YR-R on the 2024 checklist means resident breeder. Abuladze (2017) estimated about 60–80 pairs nesting on cliffs.
It is harmless on ordinary encounters; do not approach nests. It is globally Least Concern and coded LC nationally on the 2024 checklist. It is not on the 2014 Georgian Red List. Do not catch wild birds; CITES Appendix I restricts international trade.
- Budagashvili & Javakhishvili 2024 — The birds of Georgia (Sandgrouse 46)
- SABUKO — Bird checklist
- Abuladze 2017 — Present Status of Peregrine Falcon in Georgia (4th International Peregrine Conference)
- BirdLife DataZone — Peregrine Falcon
- IUCN Red List — Falco peregrinus
- საქართველოს მთავრობის დადგენილება №190 (2014) — წითელი ნუსხა
- FAOLEX — გარეულ ცხოველთა სახეობების ჯგუფების ნუსხა
- NPLG Wiki Dictionaries — შავარდენი
- IOC World Bird List
- Avibase — Georgia bird checklist
- CITES Appendices — Falco peregrinus
- White et al. — Birds of the World (Falco peregrinus)
- Wikimedia Commons — Peregrine Falcon La Cañada (Juan Lacruz, CC BY-SA 3.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — Falco Peregrinus 07-agosto-2015 (Juan Lacruz, CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — approaching nest (Ermell, CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — HuntingPeregine (Juan Lacruz, CC BY-SA 3.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — juvenile, Dover (Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 4.0)
- xeno-canto XC976515 — Falco peregrinus (Stuart Wilson, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Species profiles are compiled from peer-reviewed literature and established biodiversity databases, and are reviewed as new taxonomic and conservation data become available.
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