Did anyone see the peregrine falcon today?
The first I knew about it was when a shower of white feathers, many of them bloody, started falling onto the family stand. I looked up and there was this beaked face very deliberately plucking a pigeon and dropping them on the people below. Before long, the poor pigeon must've been suitably plucked because larger pieces of bird started falling to the floor.
After a while, it did a victory lap with a mangled bundle of feathered feast gripped tightly in its claws. MrsStourbridgeFox asked me what it was and I answered that it looked like a peregrine falcon. Although I soon refuted my own answer as they are very shy birds and surely wouldn't be in such a populated place. Also, Leicestershire might be many things, but mountainous or on the coast it is not. So where would a peregrine falcon come from?
Anyway...I've just got fed up of trying to make sense of the managerial rumours and decided to look it up. Here is what I found...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-15149039
Is it me or is it singing 'Sol, Sol Bamba'?
Anyone else see this amazing sight? Apparently there might be a breeding pair.
Peregrine Falcon
posted on 7/11/11
Thanks for your comments.
So they are losing their shy streak and becoming urban dwellers then. That explains it.
As I don't live in the East Midlands I don't see the local news. I think I saw it briefly against Derby but didn't realise what it was.
I think it is amazing the thing or things are there and we are lucky to have them.
posted on 7/11/11
I can recall one or two mentions in novels of them nesting on old-fashioned Manhattan skyscrapers for the last couple of decades.
I know 'old-fashioned skyscraper' sounds strange, but unlike sheer modern concrete jobs, the early 20th century ones often have narrow external ledges at each storey. Although you'd think from movies and TV that people walk along these every day while fleeing from cops, commie agents or jealous husbands, in fact no one ever does, and they are quite as undisturbed as cliffs as far as hawks are concerned.
posted on 7/11/11
Are they endangered? I hope no-one wants them removed because I'm chuffed to bits they are there.
posted on 7/11/11
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posted on 7/11/11
Wikipedia says that they "will on occasion take rats, voles, hares, shrews, mice and squirrels". I wonder if they might stretch a point for Rob Earnshaw?
posted on 7/11/11
Just to back up fat fox's point about older tower blocks:
http://sussexheights.co.uk/peregrines/
Still can't get a live link to work on here, sorry.
posted on 7/11/11
Vulpes- try cutting and pasting the link instead of copying and pasting it, that seems to work better for me?
posted on 7/11/11
Thanks stunningfox, I'll give it a try
http://sussexheights.co.uk/peregrines/
posted on 7/11/11
Harrumph!
posted on 7/11/11
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