Prairie falcon Falco mexicanus

Identification Tips:

• Short, dark, hooked beak
• Dark brown cap and cheek
• Wingtips fall a couple inches short of tail on perched birds
• Pale supercilium and patch behind eye
• Pale face and throat with thin, dark mustache mark
• Dark axillars and underwing coverts
• Brown back with paler brown fringes
• Brown tail with very faint darker bands

Adult:

• Pale brown bars on darker back
• Whitish underparts have a few dark streaks on breast and spots on the belly

Immature:

• Lacks pale bars on back feathers making back appear darker
• More heavily streaked underparts

Similar species:

Merlin is much smaller, has a less-distinct mustache mark, more strongly barred tail and lacks distinctive black mark on underwing of Prairie Falcon. Peregrine Falcon is quite similar but lacks supercilium, white mark behind eye, has thicker mustache mark, has wings that reach tail tip at rest and lacks large black underwing patch.