After a night in Hays, Kansas, my wife and I took a walk through Ft. Hays State University on the southwest edge of town. It was a pleasantly cool morning and we enjoyed our stroll through the campus which is adorned with attractive Cretaceous limestone buildings.
As we turned a corner near the Quadrangle, we were attacked by a falcon which dove from its perch on a nearby roof. Grazing our heads on each swoop, the raptor then landed in a shade tree. It was significantly larger than a kestrel or merlin and, considering both the location and the season, it was almost certainly a prairie falcon. I suspect it had a nest on the building and was merely protecting its young.
Common on the High Plains and across the Great Basin, prairie falcons usually nest on cliffs but are known to use manmade structures as well. They hunt close to the ground, snaring ground squirrels or grassland birds as they close in at high speed. This morning, we got an unexpected taste of their aggression.
