Peregrine attempt 2

I had a brief stint of Peregrine (vandrefalk) spotting with James again today in much better light. Shortly after I arrived the bird launched itself off the top of the hotel and shot past us which all happened far too fast for either of us to get much useful footage. It sped off towards the grain silos at Vippetangen which are 1800 metres away and without any pause took a pigeon from the roof. It happened so quickly that I couldn't see whether the poor pigeon was plucked whilst perched or whether it had managed to fly up. The Peregrine then made its way back clutching its prey flying over the Opera building and starting to gain height. As we lost it from view we rushed to the other side assuming it would fly up to the top of the hotel but this did not happen. It was about 10 minutes later that it flew around our building with a Crow behind it. My assumption is that it had actually landed on our building and then been disturbed by the crow. It then flew off with its prey towards the city centre but stupidly we both lost sight of it so don't know where it ate lunch.

20 minutes later though it flew past us and landed on the hotel but as it did yesterday it chose to land behind the ladder - it obviously wants some privacy when it cleans itself and sorts its feathers out.

From our viewpoint one can see large congregations of feral pigeons at many places in the city so the Peregrine has no shortage of food. If it is as efficient as it was today my only concern for it is that it spends so much time sitting around and so little time flying that it will get a bit out of shape and lose its edge.

With the better light I managed some better pictures but it would have helped even more had I remembered to change the camera settings after having taken some landscape pictures.

a montage of the Peregrine (vandrefalk) coming into land

I squandered a great opportunity to capture the falcon in flight as the auto focus just wouldn't lock on. Here I switched to manual focusing just before it came into land.

could have been better

This picture was taken at 0944 with the bird facing the wrong way and strong shadows on its underparts

This one taken at 1038 has much better light and the bird facing the right way but unfortunately that ladder...

Cruise Liner "Queen Mary 2" was in town today dwarfing the castle at Akershus Festning

This ariel view shows where we watch from and where the Peregrine was sat today. It is ca. 120 metres between the two points and closer to 100m when the bird sits on the middle of the hotel.