Just fed a wild Peregrine a feeder rat in backyard!! VIDEO

My son and I were cleaning the rat rack today on the back deck and noticed a nice looking peregrine falcon on a branch maybe 40 feet away. We sat there for a while and cleaned away.

I decided to take on the feeders and let him got about 30 feet away...he walked another 10 feet towards the falcon and WHAM...it was over.

The video is kind of blah...but I tell you what ....seeing that in my own backyard was just amazing...

http://youtu.be/T-Vkp724EMw

Awesome! Really cool, thanks for sharing (and filming). Raptors are super neat, love seeing/watching them.
I just moved and will miss my Cooper's hawk, saw him get a little sparrow once, amazing. I couldn't figure out how to box him up and bring him to my new house though.

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You crazy son of a gun! Haha.

Regards,

B

My husband is a licensed falconer and it will never get old watching one of those amazing birds fly back to us after we have released them!! They are soooooo very intelligent its scarey! I am willing to bet your peregrine was a falconery bird at some point in his life. Rats are completely NOT his normal food!! But they are the second most nutricious food for him....

just out of curiosity, will he come back for seconds? do you think he'll recognize you as a food source?

I wondered if I was causing a problem but curiosity got the best of me....he already hunted/perched back there...i have seen him on that very branch before. We have some wild mole,rats, mice, snakes like king snakes, rats snakes, watersnakes, copperheads, canebrake and pygmy rattlers etc. In we quite of few birds of prey around here. In fact I saw a dead Peregrine on my neighbors porch...he flew into his window :(

nice! we caught a red tail hawk in our backyard, it was just walking around so we went out there and it didnt try to fly away or attack us or anything. we thought maybe it was injured so we through a towel over it and took it to a wildlife vet, the guy said it was fine and was probably on its first flight and had problems, but it let us walk to 3ft from it

http://i972.photobucket.com/albums/a...0705111518.jpg

http://i972.photobucket.com/albums/a...0705111539.jpg

http://i972.photobucket.com/albums/a...0705111549.jpg

and this is a picture taken by the vet
http://i972.photobucket.com/albums/a...0705111647.jpg

it was cool, he just totally chilled the entire time, no struggle or anything, and sorry, im not trying to hijack the thread

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wapadi

My husband is a licensed falconer and it will never get old watching one of those amazing birds fly back to us after we have released them!! They are soooooo very intelligent its scarey! I am willing to bet your peregrine was a falconery bird at some point in his life. Rats are completely NOT his normal food!! But they are the second most nutricious food for him....

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Too cool. You know about 35 years ago when i was a YOUNG kid i was able to spend the day with a falconer and his peregrines. I wanted one so bad as a kid it HURT! In fact I had a poster of a peregrine in my room for over 10 years as a kid ;)

Super cool, thanks for sharing.

here are some closeups of the falcon...

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6032/...15eb6f3b15.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6224/...6c517ac6ba.jpg

haha, i like how its standing on one foot, i didnt know they did that. i love perigrines though, fastest dive speed of any bird! awesome!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cmack91

haha, i like how its standing on one foot, i didnt know they did that. i love perigrines though, fastest dive speed of any bird! awesome!

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thats not a peregrine its a coopers hawk..

That's really cool dude, thanks for sharing!

Awesome! We have quite a few falcons in Indianapolis. If I ever see a pigeon on Market St. downtown, I know he is dinner, so I just sit back and watch the show.

Too cool, thanks for sharing!

Garr, duped into responding to an older thread.. The thanks stands however, good stuff! :D

Teehee, a bit late but that indeed isn't a Peregrine, nor is it a Cooper's Hawk. I was wondering this when looking at the footage, especially since the tail and location of the bird were so off! This is actually a Red Shouldered Hawk, and you're pretty lucky to get to see one up close. They're generally very woodland oriented birds and eat animals such as small mammals, reptiles, and sometimes even birds. These birds have peeked interest in the falconry community for a few people, especially apprentices enthralled by the idea of a bird hunter that's not as tiny as a kestrel, but generally take poor to avid game chasing and prefer the much easier prey, as you can see. Below is the only Falconer I know of to successfully hunt multiple times with his Red Shoulder, but even so he ended up having to release it.

http://virtualvideo.cc/falconry/index.html