More mating Peregrine

Our south coast Peregrine were busy mating again this morning,  Well it is Valentine's Day  and this time I was fortunate to be in the right place as the female flew to one of her favoured mating points to capture a few front facing images as the male arrived seconds later.

Mating Peregrine

This fine pair of known Peregrine have been mating for several weeks now but today is the first time that I have been in the right place at the right time to record their union this year,

Peregrine Take-Offs

There was plenty of Peregrine action on the south coast of Cornwall this morning with many hunting flights out but no prey brought back to their territory during our visit.

These birds are amazing hunters and I'm sure that it will be just a matter of time until prey is taken.

Male Peregrine hassling to share Prey

Above a male Peregrine tries to steal prey from the larger female and the pair tumble down vertical cliffs where the female eventually rights herself and pulls the prey away from the males talons.


She flies to another cliff ledge to continue devouring her prey but in the images below she is once again harassed by the male to share but she is having none of it and takes off again leaving the male with little more than:      'Feet and Feathers'

Clifftop Mating Peregrines.

On  south coast of Cornwall clifftops a female Peregrine patiently waits for her male partner to return from hunting to mate.

When she sees him arrive back in their territory she bows her head in a submissive pose and calls 

He immediately responds and flies straight in to balance on her back and skillfully mates without any support from the cliff ledge.

When the male departs just seconds later he pushes off from the females back finally toppling her over but these rough conditions and mating behaviour have hopefully got this fine pair of birds of prey off to a good reproductive start to 2020.

Hungry male Peregrine

On the south coast of Cornwall a hungry male Peregrine returns to its territory from a failed hunting mission

He calls to the female peregrine perched on a nearby cliff ledge looking to share her prey but he has arrived to late as she has already dispatched her prey and stashed what was left for later.

The male flies to one of the females cliff ledge stash points and gets lucky finding a half eaten carcass from the previous days hunting which keeps him going for now.

Its now time for him to return to his hunting while leaving me with a nice sequence of take-off images as he departs.

Peregrine Take-Off

I was a little late arriving on location with the south Coast Peregrine this morning and this female had already hunted, plucked, eaten and stashed her prey but she did provide me with the very graceful take-off sequence in the three images posted below which I ended up merging into one final shot.

Peregrine Prey Sharing

My last blog showed a female Peregrine take and devour a Black-headed Gull on a south Cornish Coast cliff ledge.

Well today history repeated itself but this time her mate a smaller male Peregrine saw the action and followed her into the ledge and waited patiently for twenty minutes for a share of the prey,

The female showed no signs of wanting to share and put herself between the prey and the male to guard it.

The hungry male took off and looped to the opposite side of the female and prey so that the prey was now between them.

The female was still warning the male off but with the prey now in front of him he lunged in, grabbed it and took off in one swift movement.

The female who's crop was now well extended suggesting that she had taken her fill was no longer complaining and seemed happy to watch the male consume what was left on the prey on another ledge just a few metres away.

Peregrine V Black headed Gull

I  was watching this female Peregrine hunting along south coast cliffs in the sunlight early yesterday morning when it dropped a wing and dived down across the flight path of an immature 1st winter Black -headed Gull that had seen the Peregrine coming and was just taking off.

                                                                                                                  

The Gull had misjudged the speed of the Peregrine which slammed into its back and immediately sinks in those incredible powerful talons.

The Peregrine then carried her heavy prey with increased strong wing beats back up the cliffs to a regularly used high level plucking ledge.

Once the prey was secure on the ledge the now exhausted Peregrine took a break to spread its wings and pant open mouthed to cool down before dispatching her prey,

The prey was then efficiently plucked and the Peregrine took her fill.

With such a big prey item the Peregrine could not consume it all so she then flew with the reduced weight to a favoured stash point under a large boulder where the bird was left hidden for another feed later in the day

Back on one of her favoured perch points it was proving to be a good day for this powerful predator as she now relaxes in the morning sun.  Not so for the luckless young Black -headed Gull but that's just nature taking its toll on Cornwall's  wild coast line.