Saw this on a blog about Swift and Beau:
A further post from Ingrid containing some interesting info .....
"Ingrid Brouwer says:
2 September, 2014 at 6:54 pm
Usually Peregrine Falcons are fully mature and ready to breed at 2 years but we have seen cases where a 1 year old bird, both female and male, have had a first successful nest.
If and when this couple is the same as in 2007 (archive) they are at least 8 or 9 years old.
There are Peregrines that reach very old age, the oldest known wild PeFa was in the USA, 21 years if I remember correctly.
This season (Northern hemisphere) we have seen a couple of older females struggle with nesting, failing to produce viable eggs or no eggs at all. They are well over 10 years so Swift has still a couple of good years ahead, normally speaking.
PeFa’s do seem to have something you could call menopause, they court, mate but don’t produce eggs any more.
Famous were Freedom and Roosevelt in Fort Wayne-Indiana (USA). Their last clutch was in 2007 but they remained the residing couple at the nest site until April 2011, when Roosevelt disappeared. Freedom stayed at her site until March 2012. By that time first a young appeared and a few weeks later an immature female came on the scene. Freedom was last seen on camera on March 18 2012. She was later found dead on a roof nearby, no signs of a fight, it seems she died of old age.
Beau brings food!
and we wait!
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