Finally had some time to go through my images and choose some pictures of the peregrine falcon pair to share with the listserv. As Dave mentioned, I was at Stewart Park yesterday morning, had gone there after dropping my daughter off at school, as I'd seen Dave's email about the peregrine. I found one sitting on a tree in Jetty Woods, across from the boathouse, at about 9:30. After about 20 minutes, it suddenly took off in hot pursuit of a gull that was flying by. It swooped down on the gull which screamed repeatedly and did its best to evade the falcon. I realized that there was a third bird in the air and that it was another peregrine, also chasing the gull. The three of them took off north and rounded the corner there by the Swan Pen and were out of sight. I ran around the Swan Pen the other way, camera in hand, and when I got to the point I saw them on the ice, quite far out, to the northwest. The gull lay lifeless and the considerably larger peregrine of the two, which I'll refer to as the female, was busily plucking the gull's feathers while the other rested on a perch nearby. After a few minutes, the male approached, making a chirping (begging?) sound, and the female allowed him to eat, even offering some of her bites. She soon moved away and stood by for a few minutes, and then returned and ate along with the male. She repeated this behavior a few times, walking away for a bit, then returning and joining in. After a while, the male flew away to a mound at the edge of the ice, close to the many geese that had landed there while they'd been feeding. He did what looked like a retching action for a while, and may have been coughing up a pellet. As you can see in the some of the later pictures, their crops were very full. The female flew off soon after, south along the inlet and out of my sight. The male began to call and I heard her respond. Soon after he took off (though I didn't see in which direction as I was looking away). All in all I watched them for about an hour and a half. It was a huge thrill for me as it was only the 2nd time I'd ever seen a peregrine falcon. And to watch that cooperative hunting and feeding was just fascinating. I hope someone can identify the hapless gull. I included a couple of pictures that show the tail and a wing. I was too dazzled by the action to identify it while it was in the air. I've put up 32 images in my gallery on the CBC web site, at http://www.cayugabirdclub.org/gallery I shot the pictures with 700mm (a 500mm lens plus a 1.4x teleconverter), and still had to crop pretty heavily, so please excuse the image quality. There was not much light and I was handholding. I hope people enjoy the pictures. I'm glad to have the opportunity to share the experience.
Melissa Melissa Groo Fine Art Photography http://melissagroo.com -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --