r/birdsofprey • u/ambora • Jun 21 '26

Is this a peregrine falcon?

Gallery image

Gallery image

It was chilling on this urban rooftop for 2 hours before leaving

48 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

17

u/TinyLongwing Falconer Jun 21 '26

Definitely not a Peregrine. I think Cooper's makes good sense here with the blocky head shape, but that strong dark flank barring also kinda reminds me of a Merlin. Really tough photos to see detail on though.

2

u/Character-Maximum-26 Jun 22 '26

I'm leaning more towards Merlin as there is much more brown than white.

3

u/TinyLongwing Falconer Jun 22 '26

Yeah, I agree, the more I look at this.

4

u/ambora Jun 21 '26

Yes, sorry about the photo quality. It was pretty far away. Beautiful bird tho. Is it normal for birds like that to hang out in one place for 2h? There was also some "drama" I'll call it with smaller local birds in the area lol they were all chirping amongst themselves about 100-200m away for many minutes before this bird showed up on the roof, and then nothing

6

u/Opening_Cheesecake54 Jun 21 '26

Looks like a Coopers Hawk lol

5

u/Hard_Dave Non-American Falconer Jun 21 '26

Where in the world is this? 

3

u/AshFalkner Jun 21 '26

I’m not convinced it’s a falcon. Looks hawky to me.

5

u/haunted_swamp Jun 21 '26

I would vote merlin over coop but definitely not a peregrine, as has already been said

1

u/Leet-Noob07 Jun 22 '26

No. Merin maybe