A RARE peregrine falcon that was found dead under Athlone Bridge in Durban North will add to the taxidermy collection at the Durban Natural Science Museum (DNSM) in Wyatt Road, central Durban.
Margaret Burger of the Umgeni Estuary Conservancy said she dropped the bird off at the museum.
“As someone who is passionate about the uMgeni River and estuary, I am fortunate to work with like-minded people. We, as the Umgeni Estuary Conservancy, focus on the wildlife we find in this very urban but green precinct. Siphiwe Rakgabale, one of our Eco-champs who works daily at making the uMgeni estuary area a safe and clean space, sent me a photograph of a dead bird on 26 May. Lynne Murray one of our members picked up the bird and brought it home where I then froze the bird. It took me some time before I was able to take the bird to the Natural Science Museum,” she said.
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Zoologist and curator of birds at DNSM, David Allan said the peregrine is indigenous to South Africa.
“It’s seen in South Africa, but it’s quite rare throughout the country and it also appears elsewhere in the world, it is the most wide spread bird in the world, found on all the continents except Antarctica,” he said.
Falcons are often drawn into city spaces to prey on pigeons.
“It’s a very successful bird of prey, it feeds mostly on smaller birds and it particularly likes pigeons, and that’s what probably attracted this female to come into the middle of Durban like this.
Mmatjie Mashao, a zoologist and technical assistant at the DNSM research centre prepared the falcon when it came in.
“The trick here is to remove everything, you are only interested in the skin, beak and feet. I then stuffed the bird with cotton wool and stitched it up. It took me about two hours. It’s a big bird, so I needed more time. I played around for a while to get the right shape. I then wrapped the bird in cotton wool so that the feathers lay flat,” she said.
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The falcon’s size and plumage immediately gave away her age and gender when she was brought in.
“Birds of prey are unusual for birds in that the females are usually much larger than the males, so as soon as I saw this bird, I could see she was a very large peregrine falcon, and so she was a female and Mmatjie confirmed that when she prepared the skin, because when she opened it up, she could see the ovaries. We were also able to see that this is a juvenile bird, because it has long thin black streaks on its under parts. The adult birds have black horizontal barring and a paler throat than this bird’s got. They would remain in this plumage for the first year to 18 months of their life,” he said.
For more information, call the DNSM Research Centre on 031 322 24 12.
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