I made another visit to the cliffs of malabar Headland to check on the breeding pair of Peregrine Falcons. This season, I have been puzzled by their behaviour. Had their nest been successful? Will there be checks this year? The birds seemed to be different to previous years in what they had been doing at this time of the year – when their chicks should have fledged or been close to fledging. I had seen no food being deliver to the ledge they had their scrape on in previous seasons. I thought they may have moved to a different location, and I now think is right and explains what I have been seeing, or rather, not seeing.
With early a rain, I delayed my departure, and arrived on the cliffs around 10:45 am. Dale, who I had met on these cliffs the week before was also there. He reported that he had seen no Peregrine Falcons so far. We then went for short walks in different directions to check parts of the cliffs, and we bother returned without seeing any Peregrines.
Then at 11:20 am, Dale spotted the male perched his hon the cliffs nearby. It must have just flown in.
We sat and watched it with out cameras ready.
At 11:48 am it took-off –
After a nice take-off, it flew off along the cliffs. It returned 7 minutes later with some food. It looks like it has part of a bird – so it may been been prey that had been cached earlier.
About a minute later, it flew back and was accompanied by the female.
Both birds circled around and flew back out of sight.
Then we sat down to wait for some more action. But we had to wait a long time.
We did see a few passing whales –
But no breaching this time.
There was also a “conveyer belt” of Shearwaters flying south, not too far out to sea. There must have been thousands and thousands of them.
We saw Peregrines fly past us a few times – low down near the sea. By the time we had our cameras pointed at them, the had flown past out of sight. Dale headed off around 3 pm.
It was not until nearly 4 pm that the female flew past and circled around –
She landed on the clifftop nearby –
But about a minute later it took off and flew out of sight –
It was very windy, and quite cold out on the Headland, so I left around 4 pm. At Boora Point, I was surprised to see a rescue helicopter had landed. Lots of rescue people were milling around –
I think it may have been a training session.
