Another Day with the Malham Peregrines

I had a wonderful day out with the Malham Peregrine Falcons today and met some lovely people to boot. A couple of people asked me what I did with my photos, so I told them about this blog and I'm going to put some shots up first - I'll write the report around them a little later.  If you do happen to read this post, please leave a comment in the box blow (you can do it anonymously and don't have to log in, just put your name in the text) and come back later to read the report. Thanks.

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The Malham Peregrines 2019

Just a quick post to say 'Hi' to Bill (from Newcastle) Patterson with whom I spent a pleasant afternoon at the top of Malham Cove.  We had a great time waiting for these beauties to show in very testing conditions due to the extremely high winds and ever-changing lighting.  Here's one I rescued from under exposure, I hope you managed to get some keepers too, Bill.

 

A Day Out with the Peregrines

After the disappointment of the Scarborough Peregrines' breeding failure this year, I turned my attention to some other birds which had successfully bred at Malham Cove in Yorkshire. And it's funny how things turn out as this has now just become my new favourite place to photograph Peregrines in a natural environment.

Right from the start I should say that all my photographs of these Schedule 1 birds were taken either from the limestone pavement or from the public footpath at the top of Malham Cove where I was regularly chatting with walkers and day trippers who passed by.  Throughout the breeding season the RSPB have a Peregrine Watch at the foot of the Cove with spotting scopes pointing at the nest site which is widely publicised.

I'm very lucky because there is a Peregrine nest site only 10 minutes from my home, but it's in a town and so although it's great to have them here, most of my previous Peregrine photographs either have them in a nest box or on a building or just in the sky.  And you can only have so many blue sky flight shots before it gets boring.

I prefer taking bird photographs in natural surroundings and the cliffs at Scarborough provide a great backdrop, particularly for flight shots.  But Scarborough is two and a half hours drive for me and you do need to be there in the morning to get the light on the right side of the cliffs. So Malham, which is only one and a half hour's drive from my home now gets my vote for this type of photograph, especially when the sun is shining like it is at the moment.  And better still, you can easily get at eye level and above the birds to get some overwing shots, instead of being underneath them all the time as at most other places.

This year two Peregrine chicks have fledged successfully and they are happily flying around the area around Malham Cove although still under the watchful eyes of their parents.  At times the huge ampitheatre which is the Cove echoes with the sound of the birds screeching for food - a truly wonderful sound.

The chicks are brown compared to their parents' grey colour and so are quite easy to spot once you have got your eye in.  There can be long waits between each flying session when the birds just sit perched on a rock ledge or in a tree and I was there for over six hours to get these shots with less than half an hour total flying time.

So here's a piece of trivia to end on which to end this post. The Peregrine's nostrils were the inspiration for part of the design of modern day jet engines. The air pressure from a Peregine's 200mph stoop or dive could easily damage the bird's lungs so the opening of the nostrils contain small bony tubicles which protrude slightly and which guide the air entering them reducing the pressure and shock waves created.

This enables the bird to breathe whilst in a stoop by reducing the change in air pressure. You can see the tubicles in the photo directly above. Jet engines were later developed with a cone in them just like the Peregrine's nostrils which allows the air to pass through at great speed in a very similar way. Once again, a human invention inspired by nature.

As I mentioned earlier, this is now the 'go to' place for all my Peregrine shots, and next year I'll be getting there even earlier the year to watch the events fully unfold.  But I better let the bird have the last word.

The Yorkshire Dales around Giggleswick, Settle and Malham

I spent a week at Giggleswick in the Yorkshire Dales with my wife Sarah and her twin sister Susan and husband Bill in August this year.  We had a great time scrambling to the top of Malham Cove, walking along the River Lune at Kirby Lonsdale, having lunch at Aysgarth Falls and visiting the Wensleydale Cheese Shop in Hawes.

Our rented barn cottage conversion overlooked fields with sheep and swallows and a family of swallows were nesting in the porch on one of the buildings.  I knew I wouldn't really be able to do too much birding during the week but on the last day I did manage to get a bit of time for some photographs at two locations the way home.

The first stop was on the River Ribble on the outskirts of Settle.  I'd noticed a weir here on the day we drove to the cottage when I immediately thought 'Dipper'. A little later in the week I came down on my own one morning and was pleasantly surprised to see one almost immediately.  However, getting a decent photo of it was another matter due to it not showing for long and bad light.

So I stalked the bird for a few days, sometimes not seeing it at all,  and the locals often watched me but never asked what on earth I was up to!

So on the final day of the holiday everything seemed to come together - the light, the bird and my wife agreeing to stop for a while - she even got the binoculars out and enjoyed looking at it herself.

We decided to take the scenic road home from Settle, back over the tops past Malham Cove, especially as on our previous walking trip here I'd noticed that there were a few Wheatear about. At first I thought they'd all left because there were none where I had previously seen them earlier in the week, but I needn't have worried because a couple soon appeared a little further along the road.