The slate-grey and black-barred peregrine falcon (duck hawk) is one of the speediest and most powerful of all flying organisms. It flies on the level at 60 m.p.h., dives at 180, knocks out its quarry (birds up to the size of duck) with its steely talons, kills only what it will eat. Its attacks are always made from open sky, and what it does not kill with the first attack, it seldom bothers to pursue. The late Gerald H. Thayer once admiringly described the peregrine falcon as a "powerful, wild, majestic, independent bird, living on the choicest of clean carnal food...
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