Peregrine Hand-off

I don't know what it is about the peregrine falcon that has made it one of my favorite birds to photograph. Maybe it's the fact that they were nearly wiped out in the US back in the '60s before anyone understood what DDT did to their eggshells. Or maybe it's the fact that they are the fastest animal on the planet, able to reach speeds of over 200 mph (320kph). That speed alone makes it a less than optimal bird to try to photograph. It's just too fast, and during the 10 years I have been photographing them I have only a handful of decent pictures to show for it and most of those taken when the bird is sitting on a branch doing nothing interesting. So the series below which represents about 40 hours of watching, waiting and hundreds of missed shots, is somewhat of a dream come true, an adult peregrine handing off a meal to a juvenile bird. Truth be told the pictures are nowhere near as sharp as I would have liked them to be, but after ten years, you take what you can get. If only there was some way to get a GoPro camera mounted on a peregrine...

More (less interesting) peregrine images can be seen at
http://www.pbase.com/kingfisher/peregrine