Towards the end of February I was lucky enough to catch sight of the Cambridge Peregrines in town and snapped a few shots of the female before the male arrived and mated her. Today, we saw the female preening on the shady side of one of their habitual towers. I got a few low-light shots of her and then spotted feathers cascading down from the sunny side of the tower. It was the male plucking a pigeon high up, basking in the sun as he did so, and once the job was done, he flew off to the nest site and began feeding pickings from the carcass to his two chicks.
It’s astonishing how few people even look up as they walk past these ancient Cambridge buildings. Perhaps they are not interested in the possibility that a pair of large falcons is just above their heads. Nobody even asked what I was zooming in on. Maybe they thought I was simply recording details of the sandstone architecture.
There is another pair just outside town, which I also photographed recently.