The youngsters were near the peak's summit, where heaven's breath is ceaseless.

Jim Ozier was equal to the task. He would find them. He pressed the "up" button.

Joey Ivansco/AJC (ENLARGE)

he past four weeks, three young peregrine falcons have called this balcony planter outside the law offices of McKenna Long & Aldridge home.

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The elevator rocketed upward, stopping near the top floor. A biologist with the state Department of Natural Resources, Ozier stepped into a carpeted lobby. To the east: Stone Mountain, looking like a lone wave on a flat sea; to the west: Kennesaw Mountain, its two humps arched like a serpent rising from the sea.

And, two stories below, in a balcony planter: a trio of month-old peregrine falcons. They hopped Tuesday evening like children at play, flapping wings that soon will bear them into the high blue.

Nearby sat their parents. He perched on the steel-and-glass edge of the SunTrust Plaza building on Peachtree Street, 800 feet above the tumult of going-home traffic. She grasped a railing closer to her brood.

Kak! Kak! Kakakakakakakaaaaak! The male screamed and winged upward as Ozier and others stepped onto the balcony, plastic containers in hand. He whistled past as Ozier reached for the first youngster. Imagine a bullet with feathers.

Kaaaaak! Mother peregrine landed on a ledge 50 feet away.

If birds are capable of cursing, the mama had a foul mouth.

Then, as the parents cried and swooped, Ozier and his assistants repeated an annual procedure: They tagged and identified the birds born atop one of Atlanta's tallest buildings.

"Ow!" The first peregrine struck fast, his beak young and sharp. Blood welled from a cut in Ozier's right index finger.

It's not always a safe job, but how else to learn more about the migratory and nesting habits of Falco peregrinus?

Aerial stars

The parents are called Kate and Spencer in honor of another high-flying pair: movie stars Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Enthralled employees at McKenna Long & Aldridge, the law firm whose offices look out on the nest, named the duo when they chose the aerie three years ago.

"This female is really bossy," and has the same sort of aggressive style Hepburn possessed, said Laura Miller, who manages the firm's conference center and special events. "She runs her mouth a lot and bosses him around."

And Spencer? Is he henpecked? "She hollers," said Miller, who monitors the birds from a live camera. "He comes."

Together, they deliver. Last year, the parents produced three male fledglings. They joined their parents in the heights, learning to hunt songbirds and pigeons, the peregrines' main diet, before flying away in summer.

Peregrines are superb hunters, agile, sharp-eyed and stunningly fast. They routinely cruise at interstate speeds, but are capable of NASCAR velocity. They've been clocked attacking prey at more than 200 mph.

"Sometimes," said Miller, who has witnessed the attacks, "all you see is an explosion of feathers."

Feathers of different widths and colors littered the area where the nestlings live.

"Northern flicker," said Ozier, eyeing a stack of faded remains. He reached into the planter and extracted something that looked like a bent twig — a dried bird's leg. It bore a green tag.

"Huh!" he said. "Homing pigeon."

Flying, thriving

The falcons nest from the Arctic to the tropics, wherever they can find a cliff that affords them flying room and a view. "Peregrine" is the Latin word for "wanderer," and it's apt. Some tundra dwellers leave their cold homes and wing south every year, passing along the Georgia coast on a peregrination to South America.

"For them, it's no big deal," said Ozier. "They can cover so much ground so easily."

Others, such as Kate and Spencer, stick close to home where the weather is favorable, the picking easy. They merely have to drop off the SunTrust tower and return, moments later, with lunch.

At least one other pair of peregrines finds the living easy in Atlanta, too. They nest in a vent at the Four Seasons hotel in Midtown. A third pair may be living near Lenox Square, Ozier thinks.

The two pairs are the only known peregrines living in Georgia, not noted for cliffs.

"You can find them in the Appalachians, on up in to New York," said Ozier.

Pesticides such as DDT nearly wiped out the species, and the peregrine once was listed as endangered. But a ban on DDT helped them rebound, as did a program in which peregrines born in captivity were released in the wild.

Today, according to the National Audubon Society, peregrines are thriving in urban areas in the intercontinental United States. They're also living large in Alaska.

The trio born at the SunTrust tower looked great, Ozier declared. They are healthy and pretty, dropping their snowy chick fluff to reveal the plumage beneath. As Ozier and another DNR worker banded the birds with tags from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, they paused to admire their fierce beauty.

Kak! The peregrine was fast, but Ozier just a little faster. "Nearly got me," he said.

The birds — males, judging from their big, yellow feet – soon were back in their planter. Kate and Spencer rose in the airy thrust of evening, wheeling, waiting for the humans to leave.

Moments later, the family was together again. Kate landed on the planter and gave her youngsters a sharp-eyed going-over while the old man perched close by, looking ruffled.

In a few weeks, they'll all be traveling the aerial highways of downtown, in the windy breath of heaven.

DNR has posted a Web camera to monitor the birds. Log on to www.georgiawildlife.org/documentdetail.aspx?docid=283&pageid=1&category=conservation