My single decent bird of prey photo!

...which I am calling a brown falcon. Yet to identify / photograph one perched or on the ground as everyone else seems to have done.

This picture taken on the Cape Woolamai trail - we also saw a peregrine gliding along the cliffs (too fast and too brief a sighting to get a photo).

Brown falcon, Falco breigora

Back on the rails?

There are no birds in the far western end of the Rhyll inlet....none...not a sausage.

Even if someone shows you a photo of buff banded rail allegedly taken at the far western end of the Rhyll Inlet do not get taken in. There are, I repeat, no birds among the spiky grass tussocks and muddy salt marsh of the western end of the Rhyll Inlet. Don't take the bush bash hike and wait among the mozzies thinking you might tick off an elusive rarity - it's just... not.... worth it.

If however you happen to be having a pizza from the wood-fired oven at the Cowes Eco Resort you may do worse than go for a wander (no further than 20m across the the mown lawn) cos you might see something like this:

Similarly you might drop in at a park near your workplace & finally catch a photo of a bird previously seen but not identified...

(excited to finally identify this bird, but having already ticked the BBR above I was hoping it was going to be something else!)

And to complete the irony check this out: Pa's 70th approaches (22/2) & that means "Pete makes a slideshow". I have been going through some of Mum & Dad's old photos. They are definitely muggles (non-birders). This photo was labelled "Trader Nicks" which is an eatery on Lord Howe Island:

 I couldn't believe it!

Pete (RTS, Tally 115)

Tell me about the Peregrine, Uncle Pete!

You haven't heard Uncle Pete tell his peregrine falcon story?

Well......it was like this......!

We had all gone to the Gold Coast with the original intention of running in the 2008 Gold Coast Marathon. Injury had interfered with my training and I had pulled out of the race weeks earlier but we still went for the holiday.

On the day of the big race we were watching some of the leading runners from our 24th floor apartment.

7:02:58 AM, 6th July 2008

“KEER-KEER-KEER!”

What was that? It sounded really close! Sure enough perched on a ledge was this impressive bird. My first thought was that it was distressed and there were legs and feathers sticking out where there shouldn’t be. Was it hurt?

7:03:03 AM

“KEER-KEER-KEER!”

Looking straight at me now I realised that the call was full of ferocity and venom. This bird was perfectly healthy and in fact had just killed (or was still killing?) its prey.

“Wow! What did you do?”

Well....it was like this...I changed lenses of course.

7:03:39 AM

Anyway then a pied butcherbird arrived on the scene behaving in a distressed manner and shortly the peregrine falcon took off with it’s kill heading inland from the coast. The butcherbird flew after in an uncertain, half hearted sort of way.

7:04:13 AM

More about the pictures:

• In the second one you can see one of the Marathon runners competing!
• I have only just noticed the peregrine's blood-smeared bill in the zoomed in picture!
• The bereaved butcherbird cuts a forlorn figure on the ledge above. It cannot change a thing!

Someone in San Jose California has uploaded photos to Flickr of a much love metropolitan peregrine family. They have photos of Mum doing a mid air transfer of dinner to one of the kids:

See the midair transfer by clicking here.