Eleonora's Falcon

Eleonora's Falcon breeds almost entirely on rocky islands and coastal cliffs of the Mediterranean and nearby Atlantic islands, timing its nesting to coincide with the autumn passage of migrating songbirds, which it catches to feed its chicks. After breeding, the entire population undertakes a long migration to winter on Madagascar.

The species occurs in two distinct color morphs, pale and dark, both of which can be present within the same colony, making feather color variable even among birds from a single site.

IUCN status: Least Concern, though its breeding range is naturally restricted to a limited number of colonies.

Recognizing Eleonora's Falcon feathers

• Flight feathers: Long and narrow, dark brownish-grey to blackish, adapted for agile aerial hunting.
• Tail feathers: Long and slim, dark with faint banding in pale-morph birds, essentially unmarked blackish in dark-morph birds.
• Body feathers (pale morph): Grey-brown above, cream to buff below with fine rufous streaking, dark malar stripe evident on facial feathers.
• Body feathers (dark morph): Uniformly sooty blackish-brown throughout.
• Shaft color: Dark brown to blackish.
• Compared to similar species: Longer-winged and narrower-tailed than a Peregrine Falcon; the dark morph can resemble the Sooty Falcon but Eleonora's is larger with longer wings and, in pale birds, shows rufous streaking below that Sooty Falcon lacks.

Pale-morph adults have grey-brown upperparts, a dark mustache stripe, and cream underparts streaked with rufous-brown. Dark-morph adults are essentially uniform sooty blackish-brown throughout, a genetic color variant found alongside pale birds in the same colonies. Juveniles resemble pale-morph adults but with buffier, more scalloped upperparts, molting into adult plumage over about two years.

Breeds on sea cliffs and rocky islets across the Mediterranean, with a few colonies on nearby Atlantic islands such as the Canary Islands. A long-distance migrant, the entire population winters on Madagascar and nearby areas of the western Indian Ocean.

Uniquely times breeding for late summer/autumn to exploit the peak of songbird migration, hunting small birds in agile aerial pursuit, often at dusk. Nests in loose colonies on cliff ledges. Calls include harsh, repeated cackling near colonies. A long, narrow dark feather found on a Mediterranean sea cliff in late summer, in either sooty or streaked pale form, is a strong candidate for this species.