Peregrine

A stolen hour at Maridalen this morning before I taught the kids at Jr Jr’s school a thing or two about birds (I only had (shared) responsibility for the class for 2 hours and was exhausted by the experience – I definitely think teachers deserve far more recognition than they get in many countries).

The weather continues to be hot with little wind but it is not bringing with it any new arrivals of insect eating birds but that is probably because there are not many insects in evidence yet although I am now up to three species of butterfly so far this year (Brimstone, Camberwell beauty and yesterday my first Comma). There is some rain forecast over the weekend and hopefully this will bring with it an arrival of new species.

Today was very quiet although I did have three species of raptor. An Osprey (fiskeørn) flew in from the north presumably to feed on the lake although I didn’t keep track of it. A couple of Sparrowhawks included a migrating bird and another that was probably a local breeding bird. Best though was a falcon that I spotted coming in low from the south. I had no idea what it was as it flew towards me although it did look small and long winged. When it finally showed some plumage characters it became clear it was a 2cy Peregrine (vandrefalk) and due to its small size again probably a male. In addition to proving an ID problem for me it also proved a photographic problem as I set the camera to overexpose far too much although with a bit of photoshoping there are a couple than can be used for ID purposes.

On the ground there was hardly a bird to see although a couple of female Ring Ouzels were still hanging around.

 

2cy Peregrine (vandrefalk) on its way north over Maridalen

despite appearances a lerke (lark) and a falk (falcon) does not a lerkefalk (hobby) make