The Peregrine Falcon is well-known in North America for having recovered from critically low numbers during recent decades. This conservation success was achieved primarily through the innovative captive propagation techniques developed by the Peregrine Fund and its predecessors. Large numbers of chicks raised in captivity and successfully released in the wild have helped increase population numbers and expand the breeding range of this noble bird.
Peregrine Falcons that nest in northern areas migrate southward through the continents in fall, but had not been known to occur in Hawaii before the 1960's. One bird sighted several times in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park in 1961 was the first record of this species reaching Hawaii. A few others straggled to the islands in later years. These gradually became more frequent, and by the 1990's one or more Peregrine Falcons were coming to Hawaii every year.
This table contains all the known records of Peregrine Falcon reported in Hawaii through June 1996. More than 100 records are listed, including several coming to ships at sea a few hundred miles from Hawaii. The records have been extracted from the SIGHTINGS database containing more than 50,000 records of bird observations in Hawaii. The database is maintained at Bishop Museum as part of the project Occurrence and Status of Birds in Hawaii.
This demonstration project is presented to assess the interest in this type of information, and to further develop web-based information distribution capabilities. For comments or questions please contact Robert Pyle, Dept. of Natural Sciences, B.P.Bishop Museum, 1525 Bernice St., Honolulu, HI 96817 [rlpyle@bishopmuseum.org].
In the NOTES field, two-letter symbols identify the type of information contained in a related text file not included in this presentation. Symbols include Ac=activity, Co=counts, Id=identification, Pl=plumage, and others. Absence of symbols indicates no related text file for this record. In the SEASON column, the first two numbers are the year [e.g. 94=1994], and the last three characters indicate the season of observation [1WI=winter, 2SP=spring, 3SU=summer, 4FA=fall]. Note that Winter season includes December of the previous year. Other columns are self-explanatory.
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