Urban Peregrines 1

It's not often I get out of the office but one day last summer I was wandering back there from a meeting when I saw a sign for a building development.  The name I recognised from the Avon Birding website, so I went for a look.  The street ran down to a bridge over the river and from there looking back at the old brick building I was blown away by what I saw.  It's what I expected to see, but I hadn't really believed I would.

That sighting led to a series of weekend early morning trips to try and capture some usable shots of my first urban peregrines.  That first day there was an adult on the drainpipe and a juvenile running along the ledge at the top of the building.  3 days later when I returned with a camera there wasn't a bird in sight - I had timed my 'discovery' perfectly with the date of fledging!

I was standing there on the bridge scanning the building when it began to snow - feathers. 

Looking up at the crane arm more or less directly overhead I realised there was a peregrine plucking a meal.  Amazing.

Those first trips the youngsters mainly stuck to the cranes, perhaps easier to land on, and the adults brought in feeds.  Once there was food around it wasn't hard to find the birds - juvenile peregrines must be amongst the most noisy youngsters with that piercing call.

Week on week I saw the birds become more confident and mobile, meaning that adults and youngsters might be found on the cranes or on the building - sometimes almost overlooked amongst the pigeons.

Being Bristol one weekend there were a few hot air balloons around during the Festival.  I didn't get the numbers over I hoped for, but managed to get one to partially overlap with a bird.

The building was the old generator building for the Bristol trams, and it has been used by the birds for a few years now.  However the whole area is being renewed and the building is included in the plans for the new development so I do wonder if the birds will stay around - hope so but doubt it - certainly no bushes to hide the food cache behind.

It is sad to think this might be my last chance to watch a sight like this.

 BTW - look what you can do with a big lens, a converter and a crop sensor camera!  This was on the top ledge.

Some more and hopefully better pics to follow.