Peregrine Falcon observation

[Richard Lane <>]

Hello Philip.

What a special treat that must have been!

Do you (or others) have any idea of the range or size of the territory of a single Peregrine Falcon? I observed (from quite some distance) a Peregrine Falcon at Jerrabomberra Wetlands (JW) on June 17 (see attached photograph). This bird (or another?) has been seen around JW on several days.

... Richard

On Mon, Jun 24, 2019 at 8:27 PM Philip Veerman <> wrote:

Whilst travelling home from the meeting about JW requested by Jenny Bounds’ message, I was travelling about 80 km/h along Sulwood Drive on the southern side of My Taylor. A bit past the parking area for people doing the summit walk. I saw a Peregrine Falcon flying over the southern slopes of Mt Taylor and stopped to watch it, for about for what turned out to be about 30 minutes. Fortunately plenty of road verge there and the bird was easy to refind after stopping. It was flying tight circles then perched on the tallest dead (burned out) tree stump available. It sat looking around for about 5- 10 minutes then flew off gaining height then flying over Sulwood drive over eastern Kambah, then from a height of maybe 300 metres was into a stoop, down to below the horizon from my viewpoint. About 2 minutes later it reappeared flying low over houses but quickly gaining height, again flying over me at about 200 m high and I could not see any sign of it carrying prey. As it continued almost over the perch it had been on before, it dropped something. If it was prey it was small and eaten quickly, but the way it fell was looking more like a stick. A few more circles around gaining height with minimal flapping then a speedy entrance again over the road and over Kambah then another very impressive stoop about 200 metres from the first one, again to down to below the horizon in maybe one or 2 seconds . Again it rose up it appears without a sign I could see of successful hunt and continued to fly in rising circles until disappearing over the horizon of Mt Taylor. I did not see any evidence of what it was presumably hunting.

 

This spectacular performance is what they are famous for but “not something you see every day”.

 

Philip

 

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