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From: wvenable@spam.ua.oz (Bill Venables)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Peregrine Falcon in Pine Forest
Message-ID: <467@spam.ua.oz>
Date: 2 Jan 91 23:07:33 GMT
Organization: Stats Pure & Applied Maths, Uni of Adelaide, Australia
Lines: 20

Over the break I did a bit of birding in and around a large commercial
Radiata Pine forest here in southern Australia.

I was always led to believe that the non-native Pine forests in Australia
were ecological wastelands.  However the native birds, at least, were quite
numerous and evidently using the niche quite well; for example Yellow-
tailed Black Cockatoos and Crimson Rosellas. (Of course there were also the
introduced species, particularly European Blackbirds, Greenfinches and
Goldfinches which, unfortunately, were abundant).

At one point I spotted a Peregrine Falcon perched on a pine tree well
inside the forest, calmly preening itself and more-or-less being ignored by
all the birds around.  This rather surprised me, since I had always thought
of Peregrines as birds of rocky ledges and outcrops - but this was dead
flat country with no hills in sight.  Do Peregrines occur in pine forests
elsewhere in the world?

-- 
  Bill Venables, Dept. of Statistics,  | Email: venables@spam.adelaide.edu.au
  Univ. of Adelaide,  South Australia. | Phone:                +61 8 228 5412