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.