I first saw a peregrine falcon at the main beach in Santa Cruz, CA on new years day 2006, and it was one of the things that motivated me to expand my photography hobby into bird photography. I have had probably five sightings since, including a couple times this winter, but, for various reasons, have never been able to get any shots off.
I had been led to believe that this was the peregrine falcon described at
San Lorenzo Falcon, but after posting some of these images to a photography forum I got the following response:
This is the history of "your" peregrine" from Janet, a biologist at SCPBRG, who I wrote sending a link to your pictures. I was going to email it to you, but couldn't find your email address.
"Hi Catherine, wow, you have a good eye! Thank you! Yes, she is getting along quite well as a matter of fact. I've mentioned before there is a peregrine nest near my home (don't ask me where, I'm not tellin' ;->0.
This bird we call Angelina. She is one of the most beautiful peregrines I've ever been privileged to see, let alone live with briefly.
She came into our hands due to a wing injury. We thought she was a winter migrant but it turned out she was the nearby breeding female. We learned that when Brian Latta was flying her for rehab exercise and she flew in to the nest canyon. We were concerned she might be attacked by "the locals" but it turned out she WAS the local, as evidenced by the male copulating with her. Brian figured at that point she was better off with him since it was the breeding season and he would feed her. They brought off three young the next season.
She is wearing what are called aylmeris through which jesses would normally be threaded if the bird wasn't flying. Brian could have trapped her to remove them but chose to let her be as they don't hurt anything and will eventually fall off, in fact I'm surprised they haven't already. A clue that this is indeed Angelina is that she has no band; if she were a lost falconry bird she would have been banded. Also, in the pictures she is hanging the "hand" of her right wing. She does this when relaxed but it doesn't affect her flying. She lost a ligament to the injury, but since we're two years down the road she's certainly OK. In the picture she's several miles from "home", nothing to a peregrine if there are abundant pigeons to be had. Thanks for pointing this out.
