2022 a Second Amazing Year in a Row for Nesting Falcons at Pinnacles National Park

By Wildlife Biologist Gavin Emmons, San Francisco Bay Area Network Falcon Monitoring Program

Adult female prairie falcon perched at a nest cavity site, with three nestlings dozing in the interior. Prairie falcon young fledge at ~42 days old, and these nestlings are ~25-27 days old.

NPS / Gavin Emmons

July 2022 - The raptor monitoring season is finishing up at Pinnacles National Park. As it began, it seemed unlikely that the park’s breeding falcon pairs could be even more successful than they were last year when they raised an impressive 40 young. Yet here we are. This season, nine prairie falcon and four peregrine falcon pairs nested and all pairs fledged a total of 46 falcon young!

To put this in perspective, this is the highest falcon fledgling total for a breeding season since monitoring began, matched once before in 2013. It’s also the first time we have had no nest failures in a season since 2005. In 2022, the nesting peregrine falcon pairs produced 14 fledglings, a record high for the 35 years of the raptor monitoring program.

Raptor advisories have been lifted for the rest of the year, with the exception of advisories still in effect at Little Pinnacles / Yaks. Raptor advisories help protect our magnificent birds of prey from disturbance, and climbers and off-trail hikers did an excellent job of respecting the advisories and acting as good stewards of resources at the park.

We are not certain why falcon nesting this year (and last year) has been so successful, given the large number of variables to consider. Prairie falcons at least may have benefitted from low precipitation in December and January and decreased vegetation cover for primary prey species like ground squirrels, other rodents, and grassland birds like meadowlarks.

Prairie falcon young perched at the nest cavity, a few days from fledging (and showing the colorful mix of lichens and breccia on our cliffs).

NPS / Gavin Emmons

In addition to nesting falcons, we confirmed 24 raptor nests for other species at the park this year including American kestrels, red-tailed and red-shouldered hawks, great horned, western screech, and long-eared owls, and Cooper's hawks.

I really want to recognize the ongoing and outstanding efforts of several people that assisted with raptor monitoring at Pinnacles throughout the season—Mike Baird, Kaitlin Lopez, Joseph Belli, and Megan Gnekow. All have been working with the condor and / or raptor monitoring programs for years, and their passion and expertise with confirming raptor status at the park is greatly appreciated! Great work team!

For more information

• Pinnacles Raptor Advisories and Raptors webpages
• San Francisco Bay Area Network Falcon Monitoring webpage
• Pacific Coast Science & Learning Center Prairie & Peregrine Falcons webpage
  • Prairie & Peregrine Falcons Blog
• Contact Wildlife Biologist Gavin Emmons

---

See more from the Bay Area Nature & Science Blog