Lost in the dark Shadows

It was a lovely still morning as I walked along the South coast of Cornwall today  The sun rose up into a cloudless blue sky and warmed up very quickly following a cold start.

I caught up with a pair of Peregrine sat high on south coast cliffs and both birds were already showing signs of overheating as they perched with their wings held away from their body to improve on airflow to cool them down.

I took my coat and jumper off as I sat and watched their behaviour and was personally pleased to be feeling the heat of the morning sunshine.

The female Peregrine was still looking uncomfortable and restless with lots of wing movement and body feather shake-outs going on as she tried to cool down

I could see her looking off along the cliffs to the west near to where I had settled.

This particular recessed area of cliff where one face almost backs towards the north east and never receives any direct sunlight during the summer or winter and the dark rock always stay cool.

Within a few minutes our female Peregrine was in the air and she glided directly into this regularly used cooling station where if you hadn't seen her fly in you would never know she was there :

                                                                   Lost in the dark Shadows !

I reckoned she might be there for some time so leaving my coat and jumper stashed to pick up on the way back I walked on towards the west very much enjoying this Cornish autumn morning

Peregrine Behaviour

While on an early AM visit to cliffs along the south coast of Cornwall where I had been watching the progress of this years fledgling Peregrine,  The adult female Peregrine returned to the cliffs just as they were exposed to the rising sun,

Several months ago I watched for my first time as a buzzard in this area spread its wings on a sun soaked rock ledge presumably to warm up in the morning sunshine and this is exactly what the Peregrine did on this occasion.

The Peregrine spread its wings and flattened its body down on to dead soft grasses that had died on the ledge due to the current drought conditions,

To an untrained eye this would probably look like a peregrine on a nest but this female is already well clear of raising her fledglings for this year and they do not use any nesting material anyway.

She stayed in this wing spread stance for upwards of thirty minutes before regaining her feet and flying off a few minutes later presumably now all warmed up to start her day.