Perching Peregrine

We’re on a cruise out of Brixham when we’re told there’s a male Peregrine Falcon perched overlooking Torbay. There are only 1,500 pairs of Peregrines in the UK, although there were far fewer pairs after the introduction of organochlorine pesticides. It’s commonly remembered that one called DDT was responsible for the deaths of Peregrines. That’s not the full truth. It was actually the use of other chemicals known as cyclodienes, with examples like aldrin, dieldrin and heptachlor, as seed dressings, which caused the widespread deaths of vertebrates.

DDT caused reproductive failure by the thinning of Peregrine eggs. The cyclodienes were the ones which killed birds and the birds which killed and ate the dying birds.

I’m so pleased that the population has been recovering.