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Painting and text by Barry Kent MacKay
When I was a kid the Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) was known here in North America by the rather unfortunate name, “Duck Hawk”. The name was misleading because the species is not a hawk, but a falcon, and had no special affinity for eating ducks, although Peregrine Falcons generally do consume a lot of birds, including ducks, geese and swans. In those days these birds were often targeted by hunters who assumed that every Peregrine Falcon shot meant that the number of ducks or other “game” birds that bird would eat would thereafter survive to be available for them to hunt. At one time all the falcons, hawks, eagles, owls, and other birds of prey were deemed “competitors” for “game” birds, and also, in those days when poultry was all free range, hawks and owls were seen as threats to farming profits and many species of raptor were colloquially named “chicken hawks”. When acts were passed to protect migratory birds shared by Canada and the U.S., the birds of prey were left off, although each province and state could, if it chose to, enact its own protective legislation – or not.