Malabar Headland – 5 September 2022

This weeks trip to Malabar Headland was constrained by the headland being closed due to a Rifle Range Activity later in the week. Monday was forecast to be a reasonable day, so I headed out there with Valerie.

For a change we walked in from Malabar rather than Maroubra Beach. This allowed us to look for Sun Orchids. We found quite a few – but none with open flowers.

One, that I had been watching for a while, seemed to have had flowers. But they mow appear to have bene fertilised – so we must have missed them.

When, we arrived at the Peregrine Falcon nesting area, around 9:45 am, we spotted the male perched on a high ledge.

We waited to see if it would take off. From past experience, it often does not stay on this higher level perch for too long.

It spent a fair time looking about and preening, but eventually it took off. This was at 10:02 am.

This was a nice take-off sequence. Then a switcheroo took place. The male flew out of sight under an overhang, and at the same time the female flew out.

The female perched on some talus, and then proceeded to preen.

A few times it stretched its wings and gave signs it was about to take off, but then it settled back down.

It was around 11 am (after an hour perched on this spot), that it took off.

It flew off around the cliffs. It may not have gone far however, as we observed a lot of feathers floating up around the cliffs blown by the wind. Perhaps the female was eating a bird on a ledge out of sight?

Meanwhile, some Silver Gulls had noticed a huge shoal of fish.

Then at 11:36 am the female flew back. It circled past the nest area and landed nearby.

It didn’t stay long however. Five minutes later it  flew into the nest, and the male flew out and landed.

Then a few minutes later the male took off and flew along the cliffs.

We thought it had flown off to go hunting for food. This was at 11:46 am. It did not return until after we had finished our lunch, around 1:10 pm. It landed back on the original high ledge we had first seen it on.

About five minutes later it took off.

It seemed to fly off on another hunting sortie. It again returned around 2:06 pm.

Again, it did not stay too long, and flew off around the cliffs. We waited till close to 3 pm but did not see it again.

The behaviour we observed seems consistent with the Peregrine Falcons having eggs in the nest which requite one of the pair to be sitting on them.

Many thanks to Valerie for company during the day, and for driving out to Malabar. And also – as usual we met local walker Alana during the day and had a pleasant chat.