Friday 30 December 2011

Peregrine Rage!

I did a day surveying today as I took a day off last week instead of working in order to prep for Christmas. The weather was perfect today, cold but still and dry. There was tonnes of Golden Plover activity today with thousands of birds about the place however the highlight was a frustratingly brief view of a Christmas cracker adult male Hen Harrier - stunner.

The real highlight came in the last 5 minutes of my 2011 surveys, I picked up on a female Peregrine shooting towards me, then heard a scream and looked around to see two smaller falcons tanking low along the ground in the same directions, a little confusion: male Peregrine chasing female kestrel or merlin? bins up, BASH adult male ripping into a juvenile male Peregrine!!! They were so loud and certainly not happy about seeing each other! As they shot about high then low constantly at each other the female carried on through keeping an eye on proceedings. They eventually went out of my sight but what a way to end my 2011 surveys! Total Peregrine Rage!

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