Another excursion to Malabar Headland with Valerie and Sue. It had been a while since I had been to the headland and I was keen to see some Peregrine Falcon chicks. Our friend Alana, who lives near the Headland and often walks out during the day had reported seeing three Peregrine Falcons flying but had not been able to say whether they were juveniles or adults.
At the carpark, I bumped into Fred, another bird photographer who was just leaving. He confirmed that there were three Peregrine Falcon chicks.
Not far out along the track from Maroubra Beach, I spotted a Great Cormorant that had caught a nice fish.
Its amazing how these birds can manage to swallow such large fish.
Further out, we had a look at the Nankeen Kestrel nest. We could see one chick in the cave. It looked to be doing well. On my previous trip, I had seen a number of eggs in the nest – perhaps four. And more recently, Sue and Alana had watched two chicks being fed by parents. It now looks like one of those chicks has died.
We waited while to see if parent would arrive with food. But, even though we were a long away from the nest, we didn’t wait too long in case a parent was reluctant to arrived while we were there.
Further out, I spotted some distant raptors in flight. I think they may have been juvenile Peregrine Falcons –
And I spotted a juvenile Peregrine Falcon perched on the cliffs. It was a fair way off though.
Then another juvenile Peregrine Falcon arrived and landed on the clifftop – again a long way off.
We watched the two young birds, hoping they would fly closer.
One did take off, but it flew further away –
And it landed further away –
Then the second juvenile took off and flew pst the first –
The first took off and followed the second one around the cliffs out of sight, so we continued out towards Boora Point.
Despite looking very carefully for them on the cliffs, we id not see the juvenile Peregrine Falcons again. But it is nice to know there seem to be three chicks that have fledged.
Sue spotted this seal –
It was after fish.
There was also a number of Short-tailed Shearwaters fishing. One was close to the seal –
We had a nice lunch out on the cliffs, and we were joined by Alana. After waiting to see if any Peregrine Falcons would fly in, and having no luck, we started walking back towards Maroubra Beach. We stopped off again at the Nankeen Kestrel nest.
Then a parent arrived. It must have delivered some food.
I moved to closer spot, for a better view of the parent, but this made it harder to see into the nest.
But the chick did move out a bit –
It had been a very pleasant day out on the Headland.