Falcon finds familiar foothold for future family

Every March, almost as regularly as swallows return to Capistrano, UC Davis Health team members begin watching the cameras atop UC Davis Medical Center. They’re hoping to spot our longtime peregrine falcon friends.

On February 27, the first tip came in: The bird was back.

We’ve since taken to the skies — well, the cameras in the skies — to see if we could spot when our peregrine first arrived. Timelapse footage shows one of the birds appeared as early as mid-January to scout out the nest.

<<Watch the UC Davis Health peregrine falcon camera here>>

The visits were sporadic until recently. Now, at least one of the falcons has been a regular at the nest, creating a shallow pit for future eggs — hopefully.

The birds have nested on the medical center roof since at least 2015. Each year, the female lays the eggs in March. They typically hatch around 34 days later.

For now, we’ve officially moved into the egg watch phase.

About peregrine falcons

Peregrine falcons are one of the world's fastest birds. When power-diving from great heights to strike their prey, the falcons can reach speeds of 200 mph. The birds were on the federal list of endangered species at one time. They were among the first birds on California's Endangered Species List. A ban on the insecticide DDT in 1972 helped the species recover enough so that the raptor could be removed from the federal list in 1999. Ten years later, peregrine falcons were removed from the state’s list.

Last year’s falcons

In 2024, the falcon initially laid four eggs. But over the course of a few weeks in April, one by one, the eggs disappeared.

We contacted Michelle Hawkins, the director of the California Raptor Center at UC Davis, to find out more. Hawkins went through our video footage. The belief was that the eggs simply cracked, and the mother bird removed them. Previous years have been more successful.

In 2023, the falcon successfully hatched four eggs. The year prior saw similar triumph.