Miranda McArthur explores the hidden lives of our most remarkable feathered neighbours.

What was worshipped by the Egyptians, featured in Hiroshige prints, is the fastest creature on earth and now choses to reside in the Barbican? The peregrine falcon, falco peregrinus, of course.

Pairs mate for life and nest  at the top of our  towers. They hunt in our gardens  and airspace, swooping down at well over 200mph, striking their prey with clenched  talons and delivering the  killer blow with their rear talons.

Discarding the unwanted head  and claws, they carry their prey – most often pigeons, but sometimes gulls and smaller birds and even  bats  – to a high balcony or ledge. There they  pluck the bird with  their  razor-sharp beaks and discard the wings and bones. 

John Ramsey, a Cromwell Tower resident had a close encounter with peregrines one morning in 2023. Seated at  his dining table he heard a loud squawking from the other side of the  fire door. He crept round to the fire  exit and saw, just a few metres away through the security glass, a female bird intent on preparing a pigeon to eat, closely watched by her fledgling. On spotting John the  fledgling  flew off, but the adult bird carried on unperturbed. Fascinated, John, went back for his camera and sat on the steps opposite, a few feet away, watching as the bird devoured the pigeon and, having  eaten,  tidied away the unwanted parts.

That same year, Felicity Guiness took this remarkable photo one morning from her sitting room. 

Janet Porter and her husband Stuart Mackenzie have often seen peregrines in flight and on their balcony: “Living on high up in Lauderdale Tower, we enjoy spectacular views of the Peregrine falcons that nest above us, as they swoop across of the City and over the Barbican.

Occasionally, one of the fledglings will land on our balcony for a rest during its “flying lesson”. This often seems to entail a parent on top of Shakespeare, and another perched on a nearby tall building, each urging the youngsters to fly from one to the other. 

Some years, the fledglings are really noisy as they master the art of flying and how to battle with the air currents swirling round the towers, waking us in the early hours. They used to enjoy resting on the ledges of the black building by the Museum of London roundabout but that seems to be out of favour now. Last year,  we regularly saw a falcon perched on top of a nearby crane on a building site, staying there as the crane swung round, and often wondered if the driver below was aware of this unexpected passenger.”

Red in Beak and Claw

There are some drawbacks to having peregrines as part of Barbican life. If they choose to make their nest on your balcony you can say goodbye to Barbican maintenance services for several months, as this note issued to residents with high level tower flats by the house officer states:

Put in a little box to look like a letter snip:

These birds are afforded the highest degree of legal protection under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife and Country Act 1981, which states that it is an offence to intentionally or recklessly disturb the birds near their nest during the breeding season. Violation of this law can result in fines up to £5,000 per offence and/or a prison sentence of up to 6 months.

Therefore, we must suspend any activities in the area of your property for the time being. As per the advice given, we cannot carry out any window cleaning or repairs on several properties above and below this level until we receive clearance from the RSPB.

Then there is the nuisance of finding severed pigeon heads, claws and other rejected  body parts on the Podium or on your fire escape. We mind less about the pigeons but hope they will steer clear of our songbirds. 

The fledglings are particularly noisy both when learning to fly and when they’re more proficient and want to show off their new skills, having play flights with their siblings.

These are magnificent birds and, despite these drawbacks, we are incredibly lucky that they have chosen the Barbican to be a favoured place for nesting and rearing their broods.

Peregrine Falcon Fun Facts

  • Peregrine falcons –(female) and tercels (male) mate for life. The female is 30% bigger than the male. With a body length of 58cm and weighing up to 800gms, she has a wingspan of 120cm 
  • They fly at around 100 mph daily but when they spot their target their swoop (known as a ‘sting’) they can reach  more than twice that speed.
  • Peregrines  start to  breed when they are two to three years old. Typically they lay three or four eggs. Both birds take turns in hatching their chicks, only starting to sit when the last egg is laid. The birds spread their wings and tail over the clutch to keep them warm. 
  • Once hatched the chicks take 44 days to be fully fledged. Their plumage is beige but changes to the blue grey of their parents as they age, with the characteristic black ‘moustache’ becoming more apparent.
  • Breeding pairs usually return to their original nesting site.
  • Though adult birds have no natural predators and can live for nearly 20 years in captivity (10 years in the wild), the young birds are much more vulnerable with 60 -70%  dying in the first year of life. Some die as they are pushed from the nest by larger chicks.
  • There are estimated to be 1,800 breeding pairs of peregrines, up  from the 1960s when pesticides brought numbers so low they were designated  an endangered species. Numbers have increased considerably, particularly in lowland and urban environments, though uplands populations are still declining due to persecution.
  • Peregrines have very large eyes – if humans had eyes in the same ratio,  each one would be three inches across. They also have three eyelids. The third lid moves horizontally back and forth across the eye, keeping it free from dust and detritus.
  • The birds are known to  bathe every day, to keep their plumage clean and free from insects.  Quite where they bathe in and around the Barbican is hard to divine: for reasons of safety they prefer a secluded spot with shallow water with gravel or small stones. 
  • In the  countryside the falcons may fly as far as 15 miles in search of prey. In urban  environments such long flights ae usually not required.