While walking along the Seattle Waterfront on Sunday, the fourth, I
watched a peregrine falcon snatch a meal out of the sky next to the
Edgewater Inn. (About 1604 hrs). It immediately landed on the second-closest
corner of the roof from the street with the intended in it's claws, a
distance of only 20 feet or so from where it grabbed it's victim. The sun
was directly behind the birds from where I stood; as I looked up, I saw
roofline, a couple of inches of sun, the outline of the victim, and then
profile of the falcon with the glint of light from it's back.

The falcon had landed on a pair of "spikes" set into the roofline, impaling
the intended. While I waited for the next move, listening to a rather
plaintive call from the intended, I studied the roofline of the Inn.

About every 6 feet is a spike about 6 inches high at the edge of the entire
roofline of the building. Strung between these spikes is a thin wire. One
guess is that this is lightening rod of some sorts. Another is that this prevts
gulls and rock doves from perching on the building. The wire is very thin,
certainly not enough to suppport a window washer.

Once the plaintive calls stopped (about 15 minutes), the falcon took off
S towards Harbor Island.

I have two questions:

1. Does thhis represent "tool usage" by the peregrine? A subquestion
might be is this type of apparatus common on downtown buildings right now?

2. Does anyone remember the pop song ofthe sixties that referred to
fishing from the windows of the Edgewater Inn?

Marty Casidy
cassidym at delphi.com
Seattle, WA