The sight of Roosevelt and Freedom at their nestsite together with about a hundred pigeons is a very peculiar one. How is it possible that all those pigeons can stay there, so close to the peregrines. The hunter and it's prey?
Not once we have seen that either one of the peregrines is trying to catch one.
Well even if he/she would try, it would end up in failure. A peregrine stoops at it's prey. High from the sky he tumbles forward, pumps up his wings and drops down like a bomb. He stopes on a flying bird, not a sitting one. Of course not, because he needs space to be able to stoop, to dive. His senses are calibrated on flying prey, on movement. When he sees a flock of pigeons flying, he recognises prey. He tries to isolate one of them which has to fly for it's life. A flying escaping pigeon, the movement of it's body, of it's wings, the sound of that, the color of the pigeon, it's all stored in the databank of the peregrines brain. As soon as he sees it, his instinct tells him: prey, go for it.
But a flock of sitting pigeons. No he does not recognize that as prey, and certainly not that many. If one would take off and he would persue that one, he would loose that match. A pigeon flies very fast.
Both peregrine falcons at Fort Wayne are very well fed, they appear most of the time with a full crop. They go out hunting, leaving loads of prey behind. We see that, but the peregrines do not.. But remember it is very very cold at the moment. Wheater is very bad. It is a matter of survival now. Many preybirds get weakened by lack of food and are an easy prey for the peregrines.
They do not seem very territorial yet either. That will change as soon as courtship starts. No sign of that either yet. To cold.
So for now we still can enjoy the images of utopia: the hunter and it's prey living peacefully together.
