The Fleet-Winged Ghosts of Greenland

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By  Caroline Van Hemert, bioGraphic. 

Excerpt: ...Peregrine falcons hold near-mythical appeal in our collective imagination, and for good reason. Topping out at speeds of more than 320 kilometers (200 miles) per hour, they’re the fastest species on Earth, plummeting from the sky like amber-eyed missiles. ...Perhaps more cosmopolitan than any other wild bird species, peregrine falcons live on every continent except Antarctica, in habitats ranging from polar deserts to subtropical rainforests. They’re flexible in what they eat—from songbirds to seabirds, carrion to chickens—and in where they nest—on cliffs, in trees, on the ground, or on buildings. Some individuals barely budge throughout their lifetimes, whereas others, like the Greenlandic variety, embody the roots of their scientific name—Falco peregrinus, or “wandering falcon”—making migrations upwards of 25,000 kilometers per year. ...Since birds like peregrines feed high on the food chain, contaminants accumulate in their bodies and cause severe eggshell thinning, among other health impacts ...making the species an unfortunate poster child highlighting the hazards of DDT to living creatures. Rachel Carson’s influential “Silent Spring” unveiled the environmental crisis that postwar scientists had created: by attempting to improve agriculture through the production of pesticides, they had inadvertently poisoned the world. By the early 1970s, humans had decimated peregrine populations across much of their native range. ...For Greenlandic peregrines, the impacts of warming are decidedly mixed. ...extreme weather events, including heavy rainfall and large temperature swings, can be fatal for nesting birds. ...Warmer summers have also given rise to new residents such as mosquitoes, which have moved into the Pituffik area within the past two decades. ...mosquitoes can carry diseases such as avian malaria, which, though not yet detected in Greenland, has infected falcons elsewhere in their range and decimated other bird species on remote islands. Even insects themselves can be deadly. In northern Canada, for instance, peregrine nestlings have been killed by hordes of biting black flies, whose abundance has been linked to warming-induced weather events. ...Despite such challenges, peregrines have again demonstrated a remarkable ability to adapt. An increasing number of peregrines have nested at Pituffik over the past three decades, with birds venturing hundreds of kilometers north of their previously described range limits and possibly even edging out long-resident gyrfalcons. This trend is likely to continue.... As the ultimate shapeshifters of the avian world, such flexibility bodes well for their future.... 

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