After the previous visit the day before, I was keen to go again – but only late afternoon this time. Sue and Alana planned to walk out on the Headland in the late afternoon and I planned to walk out separately and meet them.
This time, I walked in from Malabar. When I arrived at Boora Point, around 3:20 pm, I spotted a White-bellied Sea Eagle flying overhead.
I snapped off a few photos of the Sea Eagle, and only realised later, when looking at the photos that it had a fish. I had been watching it to see if would be attacked by the Peregrine Falcons like what happened the day before.
This is interesting. I have seen a Sea Eagle fly past on the last three visits to the headland.
I then scanned the cliffs though binoculars to see if I could spot any resting Peregrine Falcons. I couldn’t see any, so moved along and tried again further around. No luck at the nesting area. But then I ran into Shane, anther bird photographer at the landslide spot, and he said they had recently been flying around – two juveniles interacting. It appeared they were mow resting.
Sue and Alana had not arrived, so I joined Shane on the lookout, and we waited for some more action. Soon after, an adult (male) Peregrine Falcon appeared and flew off towards the rifle range at high speed.
It looked like it was on a hunting expedition.
A little later, in the far distance, we spotted a very distant Swamp Harrier.
We moved over to Dead Mans Gulch, and saw the Swamp Harrier flying between Magic Point and Maroubra, still a long way off.
There were two other bird photographers at Dead Mans Gulch – Lance and Andrew. Sue and Alana then arrived from Maroubra. We then moved back to the landslide area. One of the juveniles appeared at 4:35 pm.
But there was only one this time. It started hunting for Cabbage White Butterflies.
The young Falcon dazzled us with some very fast flying.
It then settled on the clifftop for a rest. This was at 4:50 pm.
Then a bit more fast flying.
At 5:43 an adult appeared. It was the male.
It flew along the cliffs, probably looking for the juveniles.
And we could see it had some prey.
One of the juveniles then flew out and joined its father. It was after food. But the mid air food exchange did not go as planned.
The food was dropped. It was falling into the sea.
The juvenile then swooped down after it.
The juvenile managed to grab the food.
It must have been hungry, as it started eating mid air.
It was now happy, and flew back to a perch under the cliffs.
The adult male then settled on a high perch.
We then waited, watching for a while before heading back to Maroubra. It had been a pleasant afternoon.
Here are some passing ships. The closest one is a navy boat – HMAS Choules.
