Raptors

Whilst out yesterday I photographed one of these Raptors soaring the thermals and looking for prey, some love these highly evolved creatures and others despise them. One of my favourite birds is the Peregrine Falcon, along with the Sparrowhawk with its supreme flying skills. The Peregrine is the fastest flying bird in the world and has been recorded in its stoop (or dive) at over two hundred miles per hour, in fact Frightful a captive bred Peregrine was clocked at 242 miles per hour  http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/animals/birds-animals/birds-of-prey/falcon_peregrine_velocity.html

The reason for this blog is to highlight the plight of our Raptors, we recently have had incidents of intentional poisoning of our birds of prey under the pretence of saving our songbirds.In  Gloucester, Devon and in my home town we have experienced poisonings, birds such as the endangered Goshawks, Sparrowhawks and our Peregrines have suffered by the hands of these ill informed criminals. Deadly poisons have been used lacing dead pigeons with the poisons and leaving them in places, even public places endangering children. The fallacy of blaming our song bird decline on raptors is purely based on hear say and myth .  Check this link for the scientific facts                                                                                                                                                http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/birdsofprey_songbirds_tcm9-188711.pdf                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Raptors

I had a walk down to Kenidjack Valley for an hour last night and encountered three Raptors within the space of thirty minutes. The Juvenile or sub-adult Peregrine had hit a Magpie and made short work of eating its quarry. Photographs not impressive as I was photographing the Peregrine through a hedge so as not to disturb it feeding. It is amazing what you see when out for a short walk.

Peregrine leftovers, not sure if I quite got the eye glint.