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This morning on the Mountain Creek Rd on the way to
Wee Jasper we found a freshly killed Peregrine. There was a second
peregrine (I assumed it to be the partner) in a tree closely, although it
was chased away by several Sulphur-crested Cockatoos. The road
victim had just started to pluck a female Wood Duck right on the edge of
the road. We collected the dead falcon and placed the Wood Duck on the top of a
low embankment a few meters away.
We stopped at the site again on the way back (to
take a GPS reading) and to my surprise the Duck was neatly plucked and eaten as
a peregrine does (bird still on its back in same position as we had left
it), wings still connected to the largely intact skeleton, but much
of the meat removed. Perhaps the pair had hunted together and the
living partner had returned to the prey for its share (?). I can't fully exclude
other avian scavengers such as Australian Ravens. But I doubt that they would
have left the bird in the way we found it (I have seen A. Ravens feeding on
a Wood Duck at the ANU, and the corpse ended up being rather
mangled).
Michael Lenz
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