Mating Peregrine Sequence

Having missed out on a Good Peregrine mating sequence yesterday I decided to return to the same location today to try my luck once again.

This time I "Got lucky"following a three hour period of very little activity,  So I was pleased when first a female appeared to perch on the cliffs facing me and shortly afterwards a male flew in to repeat his mating performance of yesterday.

I was pleased that this time the birds mated facing towards me but they were much further away than yesterday at probably in excess of a hundred metres and their grey plumage tended to merge with the colours of the vegetation and rock face behind them.

But I guess we have to count are blessings as they come and it was certainly a joy to watch the Peregrines active mating behaviour which should hopefully help in producing a good clutch of fledgling in the oncoming months.

It was interesting to see how the male Peregrine turns and balls up his lethal talons when mounting the females back which must impair his ability to balance,  but even so the female is beginning to show signs of wear and tear from their active behaviour.

Peregrine Mating Sequence

 

They say that patience are a virtue and fortunately both Peter Tonkin and I are blessed with plenty,  We Sat on coastal cliffs for four hours this morning as can be the norm when we are watching a female Peregrine that was going nowhere and not a picture taken,

She was waiting in turn for her mate to return with prey offerings or to mate with her if he had already supplied prey before we arrived,

Time was ticking by and there was just fifteen minutes left until we both had to be off doing other things when the male arrived out of nowhere but without prey to land on a ledge close to the female, 

Seeing no prey she adopted a head down, tail up mating posture and shrieked at the male continuously for the best part of ten minutes before he took flight to loop around to mate with her and to produce for us this last minute Mating sequence posted above and below,

                                                                  Time well spent !!