Young peregrine falcons are fed by their parents for several weeks after they are hatched. At first they feed them in the nest or on a rock. Later they are expected to receive food in flight. It takes some practice. This is a sequence of shots of a fledgling learning to receive food in flight. The mom has a small bit of food that she cradles in her talons to make it as easy as possible to grab it. It's early in the fledgling's training and the food is dropped. The fledgling (a.k.a. Junior) seems to get a bit rattled and does not know what to do, and for a moment he hangs on to his mom's leg and prevents her from retrieving the food. She did go after the food (I couldn't keep up with her) and I believe she caught the food after a dive of about 100-150 feet. I did not see her attempt another transfer although I assume she did.
Since the action was fast and the distance between the birds and the food span a range distances the of sizes of the images vary significantly. Some may be too tall, so the best way to view them may be to click the images so they scale to your display size.
Fred Amico wrote:
These are terrific images, Dave!
And it looks like you had some really nice light as well.
Thanks Fred. I think I finally got them loaded in the right order.
These images were taken in the mid afternoon and the light was pretty bright and a bit harsh. You can sometimes see some well defined shadows. Fortunately the light was from the right direction so the shadows did not create big problems. The bright light did permit a fast shutter speed which helped.
Dave, Great images. You had a lot of fun here, and some challenges, too. Also, interesting info about Peregrines and Peregrine fledgling rearing. Always love it when info like that is provided with photos.
