Falcons can use olfaction to detect food in a test setting

Falcons, along with many other raptors, have long been considered to have little or no olfactory sense. A controlled experiment in which peregrine falcons, Falco peregrinus peregrinus, and peregrine falcon/gyrfalcon hybrids F. peregrinus×rusticolus used smell to detect their food showed that all the test birds had a sense of smell. The results add to a growing body of evidence that birds, including falcons, do indeed possess and utilise an olfactory sense.