“The team is thrilled this bird is soaring back through our skies and delighting Melburnians again,” Healesville Sanctuary life sciences manager Gerry Ross said.
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The whereabouts of the other two fledglings that left the ledge are not known, Hurley said, but the adult falcons would stay at Collins Street, having little reason to move elsewhere.
“In the northern hemisphere, [peregrine falcons] migrate a lot … and that’s because all the food would do the same thing,” Hurley said.
“In Australia, the food doesn’t migrate, so the predators go, ‘Just put another prawn on the barbie, what are we going to bother migrating for?’
“They may not be right at the nest, or right on the building every single day, but over the decades, I’ve been looking at that site every month of the year … and you’ll see them cruising past.”
The little falcon’s rescue and rehabilitation would give it a “slightly better chance”, Hurley said.
“Life’s tough in the city,” he said.
Peregrine falcons are birds of prey and can fly at speeds of up to 300km/h. They lay their eggs in tree hollows, on the ledges of tall buildings and in shallow dips in rocks or cliff faces, rather than in nests.