Peregrine Falcons in Pawtucket, Rhode Island

Adult and Fledgling

I spent Sunday morning photographing a family of Peregrine Falcons in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. I was invited by my friend, Kathleen, whose office is on the 4th floor of her building and has a unobstructed in the view of the tower at Pawtucket City,.  where their nest is located..  The nest box was installed when work on the I-95 bridge was started.  The only problem is that the tower may have to be torn down because of constant leaking.

Pawtucket City Hall

Kathleen's office is located on the 4th floor, which is the location where we photographed the birds from.  A great location, comfortable, with chairs, and no mosquitoes.  The line of sight was clear from the windows to the tower and we were around 300 to 350 feet away from the action.

For equipment I utilized by 500 mm f/4 lens with a 2X converter and for my main camera my full frame Nikon D 800.  I did utilize my Nikon D 7000 for a few comparison pictures.  Although the D 7000 with its crop factor of I.5 added to the magnification of the picture, the difference in sharpness between the 16 pixel D 7000 and the 36 pixel D 800 is remarkable.

Nikon D800

Nikon D7000

When we started photographing the Peregrine Falcons, all that was present by the nesting box and on the ledge below where the fledglings.  They would hop around, and flapped their wings, eat and rest.

The adults did make an appearance.  The female Peregrine Falcons went and rested on a projection just below a large carved eagle on the tower. 









The male bird flew off and disappeared for almost 2 hours.  Later, the female took off and disappeared, probably hunting for food. 

Female peering nto the "Looking Glass"

Finally just as we were packing up and going to leave, the admirals returned and brought food and there was a lot of activity.  It took me all of 30 seconds to unpack my dear and set it up to take pictures of the new activity.


Male Peregrine eating the gave rest of the prey to a fledgling.


The size difference between the male and female Peregrine falcon was large, and the male had more of an all white breast compared to the female.  This could be secondary to the recovery efforts that were instituted to recover the Peregrine Falcons from in endangered species by utilizing captive birds and non-native subspecies into the breeding stock.

Peregrine Falcons have taken to the urban landscape, and nesting on cathedrals, when the ledges of skyscrapers and towers along with suspension bridges.  So when you are out and about, keep your eyes peeled the sky to look for this extremely fast flying falcon.

Captive Birds of Prey

A portion of the workshop, led by Rod Palmer of Natures Photo Adventures , that I attended in Utah included photographing captive eagles, we were able to photograph a Golden Eagle and an Bald Eagle.  Both eagles have interesting stories.
The Bald Eagle, Liberty, is 26 years old and when it was a younger bird tangled with a power line which cause equilibrium problems in the bird, which cause problems with the eagle flying.  After time in rehabilitation, it was given to Steve Chindgen, a master falconer, to maintain.


The Golden Eagle, Gonzo, is 36 years old. It's story in some ways is a sad one, because it should not of happened.  A couple of a couple of workers were working along a power line when they discovered the Golden eagle nests, which contained 2 baby eagles.  They did not see the adults around and thought that the Eagles were abandoned and took them home.  First mistake, adults if they see people coming toward the nest will usually fly away and will observe from up high.  The 2 workers did figure out how to feed the baby eagles, but they were reported to the Fish and game department, which came and confiscated the eagles.  One of the baby eagles was so weak that it finally died, but gonzo made it through and because it had been imprinted by being fed by hand by humans, it lost its fear of humans and therefore could not be released into the wild.  If released, it would not have any fear of humans and would come down to humans, and if there was a dog or a cat with the humans, it could attack and kill the pet for food.  So The feeding of the eagles by hand was the second mistake.
Steve, owns Skyking birds and runs in the summer, "World of Flight" bird show at Utah's Hogle Zoo.  He fell in love with falconry as a boy, and has been working with the birds since the age of 8.


Rob our leader, is also a falconer, and brought his Peregrine Falcon, Frieda  for us to photograph.  We were not able to photograph the falcon flying because of both the weather and the winds that were present on some of the days.


All the birds were extremely beautiful and well cared for.  An interesting fact is that falconers do not own their birds, rather they are on loan from the federal government that protects them under various laws including the migratory Bird act. 

Liberty in the Spring gets the Maternal Urge and gathers sticks
to make a nest

Steve is hidden behing the rocks and allows Gonzo to land on them for a semi-flight photo

Bathing

Eating