Photo: Patrolling the skies, feeding her young

A female peregrine falcon perches on a hillside near Baker Lake, Nunavut. A pair of peregrine falcons have been returning to a local fishing hole for several years now and this summer was no exeption. Our photographer watched the pair return to their nest with food after a hunt. He observed four chicks currently learning to fly. Peregrine falcons are listed as a species of “special concern” under the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada because exposure to pesticides diminished their numbers, but the species has rebounded well in the past three decades. According to the Canadian Species at Risk Registry, other factors continue to threaten the species including reduction in the numbers of seabirds—their biggest food source—the harvesting of juveniles for falconry, human disturbances at nesting sites and egg poaching. (PHOTO BY LARS QAQQAQ)