These powerful birds of prey fledged last summer from a nest box high on the Palace of Westminster. Look up and you may see them, silhouetted in flight as they cavort and wheel around the tower or perch on intricately carved stonework.

They are rapidly adapting to the soaring spires of cathedrals, churches and modern high-rise architecture

This is a bird to celebrate, an urban success story that has bounced back after years of persecution and poisoning. The peregrine population in the UK had collapsed by the late 1950s, almost destroyed by a toxic agricultural pesticide called DDT. But after it was banned from agricultural use in the 1980s, peregrines began to recover and move into our cities.

Peregrines hunt other birds in the air and pack a mighty punch. Diving from height, they can reach speeds of up to 200mph, ambushing their prey in spectacular mid-air collisions, usually killing on contact. They are officially the fastest animal on Earth. 

Peregrines are cliff dwellers — a bird of mountains, moors and craggy coastlines — but they are rapidly adapting to the soaring spires of cathedrals, churches and modern high-rise architecture. The city is safer than the countryside, where deliberate but illegal poisoning still occurs, and cities are typically warmer than the surrounding countryside, allowing eggs to hatch earlier and chicks to grow faster.

As many as 30 pairs of peregrines now breed across London; look for them on or above Tate Modern, Battersea Power Station, Charing Cross Hospital in Hammersmith and, of course, the Houses of Parliament.

Further out, they can be seen along the Thames and over the reservoirs of the Lee Valley and south-west London. We also see them hunting at Woodberry Wetlands and Walthamstow Wetlands — a thrilling glimpse of urban wildness. 

This blog is adapted from a Wild London column originally published by the London Evening Standard.