Peregrine falcons are more closely related to parrots and songbirds than to hawks, eagles, or owls.

[sl8]

(from 2014)

https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=133524#:~:text=Peregrine%20falcons%20are%20more%20closely,hawks%2C%20eagles%2C%20or%20owls.&text=Please%20see%20video%20on%20bird,both%20common%20and%20rare%20evolved.

News Release 14-170

'Big bang' of bird evolution mapped by international research team

Genes reveal histories of bird origins, feathers, flight and song

December 11, 2014

This material is available primarily for archival purposes. Telephone numbers or other contact information may be out of date; please see current contact information at media contacts.

Please see video on bird genetics and how birds both common and rare evolved.

The genomes of modern birds tell a story: Today's winged rulers of the skies emerged and evolved after the mass extinction that wiped out dinosaurs and almost everything else 66 million years ago.

That story is now coming to light, thanks to an international collaboration that has been underway for four years.

The first findings of the Avian Phylogenomics Consortium are being reported nearly simultaneously in 23 papers--eight papers in a special issue this week of Science, and 15 more in Genome Biology, GigaScience and other journals.

The results are funded in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Scientists already knew that the birds that survived the mass extinction experienced a rapid burst of evolution.

But the family tree of modern birds has confused biologists for centuries, and the molecular details of how birds arrived at the spectacular biodiversity of more than 10,000 species was barely known.

[...]

[cstanleytech]

1. Still makes my head throb every time someone says the dinosaurs were wiped out because

if they had been we would not have birds today.

[eppur_se_muova]

2. I remember attending a lecture on the evolution of birds, as revealed by DNA cladistics ...

wish I could remember the lecturer's name. It was quite a revelation, all based on new DNA data; many "obviously" related species were quite distant from one another. Old World and New World vultures are examples of convergent evolution, being quite distantly related. And the "rattites" are about as valid an order as the "pachydermata" proved to be.

2014 sounds like about the right time frame; I may be able to figure out who the lecturer was from the articles I found with that date.