Malabar Headland – 7 November 2022

This was an outstanding day for photographing the resident family of Peregrine Falcons on Malabar Headland. On this day, I was joined by Ian, a visiting bird photographer from South Australia.

Ian had contacted me, originally via a comment on this blog, and we arranged to meet up while he was visiting Sydney. At this time of the year, he usually photographs Peregrine Falcons nearer his home on the Murray River. But with the current water levels being far too high for safe navigation on the river this possibility was ruled out. So he travelled to Sydney and on one of the days of his visit, we met up at Malabar and walked out onto the Headland.  It was good to meet him and  share our joint passion for observing and photographing these very special birds.

There are two fledglings this breeding season. One chick fledged on or slightly before 31 October, and the second, on or slightly before 3 November. The earlier fledgling is a fair bit larger in size than the later one. This is perhaps due to their sex (females are about 1.5 times larger when adult than males) or it could be that the first hatching was given larger amounts of food by the parents deliberately as a strategy to ensure that at least one survived. I don’t know which of these possibilities is correct.

Here is my record of this day.

When we arrived at the nest area, about 10 am, we spotted the adult male on guard duty.

Not long after, we spotted the two juveniles, flying together quite nicely.

Then, we saw the adult female, perched on one of her usual ledges near the scrape.

The adult male was still on his ledge –

Then, at about 11 am,  he took off –

Then a short time later, one of the juveniles flew past with some food.

The male would not have had time to hunt for a bird, so it looked like this food had been stored up.

Then the male returned and did some nice fast flying.

By this time, the adult female had moved to a larger ledge.

This juvenile is flying past with a stick. This seems to be something the juveniles do. Perhaps part of their learning.

About 11:30 am, one of the juveniles flew in to the mother’s ledge. The mother hurriedly left.

More food was arriving –

Just before 12 noon, we saw a huge Humpback Whale swimming just below the cliffs.

It was amazing to experience such a large whale so close.

The juveniles we still doing some great flying.

And then there was a bit of a lull between noon and 2pm, when one of the juveniles flew past.

About 2:30pm there was another food delivery –

And some more nice flying.

It looks like the food had gone to the other chick, we spotted it on a lower ledge –

A bit after 3 pm thing started heating up. More bird photographers and others  had arrived, including Alana.

We were all fortunate to witness some truly incredible flying. The juveniles were flying together, often at high speed. This sort of flying seems to be important in their learning.

And then, an adult flew in with a small amount of food.

The second adult was also in the air.

The adult with the food then dropped the food and the second one caught it mid air.

One of the juveniles was also trying to grab the food.

Another go. The juvenile is ready and in place.

And another attempt –

You can see below, the juvenile has failed to grab the food.

The juvenile and its parent have their talons locked.

The lesson continues.

The parent here actually has small bird in its beak.

Now the juvenile has the small bird. Lesson learnt.

This juvenile goes into a stoop –

And then some more amazing flying with its sibling –

About 3:44pm. two aircarft fly by. They look like the are flying very close.

The two juveniles are now resting after their flying display.

We had earlier farewelled Alan, and I spotted her on Magic Point –

About 4;30pm we had some more flying by the juveniles.

And their parents joined in.

Juts before 5pm, as we were getting ready to leave, we spotted both the juveniles perched high on the cliffs. A parent was on a lower ledge nearby.

Here are a few more photos –

One of the juveniles wants to fly, and had a tricky take-off in the breeze –

The other juvenile remained on the ledge.

The parent flew out to join the juvenile.

This had been a very special day of bird photography. It is a privilege to be able to observe these young birds growing up so quickly. Both Ian and myself planned to return the next afternoon.