p.1 #1 · Maiden flight of a female juvenile peregrine falcon
Adult peregrine falcons can take off by using their well-developed leg muscles to propel themselves from standstill. This female juvenile needed a fairly long runway to get the momentum and at the end, she had to use the cliff edge as a “spring board” to get airborne but after that, it was all fine. It must have felt great to soar over the ocean!
This set was captured during Covid lockdown and that enabled me to go to the site 2-3 times a week when traffic was really low. It would have been more tedious to do under normal circumstances in Southern California. During that period of several weeks, it took me about an hour one way that would have taken easily twice the time otherwise. The shooting circumstances out in the open at the rocky Pacific Coast made me feel safe there.
Thank you for looking and please, feel free to leave any feedback/comment,
Joshua
p.1 #8 · Maiden flight of a female juvenile peregrine falcon
Excellent sequence Joshua and beautifully documented. All the white spots on the cliff shows how popular that spot is.
I've been doing the same carefully choosing places to go and enjoying the lack of traffic during the pandemic. It will be frustrating when the traffic here in NYC returns to normal and I bet you will be facing the same challenges. I still look forward to the end of the pandemic.
p.1 #11 · Maiden flight of a female juvenile peregrine falcon
morris wrote:
Excellent sequence Joshua and beautifully documented. All the white spots on the cliff shows how popular that spot is.
I've been doing the same carefully choosing places to go and enjoying the lack of traffic during the pandemic. It will be frustrating when the traffic here in NYC returns to normal and I bet you will be facing the same challenges. I still look forward to the end of the pandemic.
Morris
Thank you very much for your kind compliment, Morris! You are correct about the spot being well-frequented. I would say that the traffic conditions are about 70-80% less than before the pandemic but the pandemic conditions are worse, significantly worse than back then, at least here in California. I can’t wait for the pandemic to be over and I would gladly put up with traffic conditions as a result of that.
George Welch wrote:
Joshua,
Nice you could get there and such inspiring images. Incredible detail and color.
Cheers,
George
George, I really appreciate your kind words. I am glad you like the images.
armd wrote:
Fantastic experience. Did you follow them during their development?
Adam, thank you very much! Yes, I followed the parents during courting, and I took literally thousands of mating images during the mating season. You know how easily it can be done using the silent shutter at high speed using that camera, I have also plenty of images of the dad bring home “bacon” for mom before the eggs hatched and after they hatched. The same when they started to venture out of the nest. There were two females, they are larger than the male, and one male in that nest. The interaction between siblings was fun to watch and photograph. The parents really worked hard to feed those always hungry chicks. Another interesting aspect after that is when the juveniles learned to grab the food mid-air from the parents. You could tell how excited they were after they completed the mid-air food transfer for the first time. They “screamed” loudly and paraded the food around by circling the area a few times,
That’s why I spent 2-3 hours each time, 2-3 times a week for 4-5 months at that site.
as a result of that.