Interesting weather Sunday in Erie County, Pennsylvania – heavy thunderstorms rolled through around 6:30AM, followed by partial clearing then on/off clouds and localized rain. After the downpour, a beautiful day.
Shot above is the view from Beach 11 of Thompson Bay, with Gull Point on the horizon right. Earlier, at the first bayside beach access along the Gull Point Trail (right of horizon center in photo above), a Peregrine Falcon was flying across the bay:
Concurrently, out for dive fishing, a Belted Kingfisher:
With other birds as prey, the Peregrine Falcon was quite interested:
As shown following, with the Falcon nearly overhead, the Kingfisher dove underwater w/ a large splash:
Unsure if this was an escape tactic, or if it hadn’t yet noticed its pursuer and was still in ‘fishing mode:’
Once out of the water, realizing its peril, the Kingfisher flew off very low and very fast:
Guessing the very low flight path was probably purposeful, e.g., the Kingfisher is comfortable in/by the water, the falcon less so:
The chase continued with some tight turns and further chasing north across the bay:
Eventually the Kingfisher made its way around a small group of floating Canada Geese:
About that time, the Peregrine Falcon gave up chase, the Kingfisher home free:
The falcon continued on its way towards Gull Point:
Later, by where the ‘official’ Gull Point Trail meets back up with the beach, caught a glimpse of what looked like the same falcon snatching a Killdeer or other small bird. (Happened too fast for any photos.) So, the Kingfisher escaped, another bird not so lucky.
[Editor’s note: Falcon and Kingfisher shots above under cloudy conditions, @ 600mm (some shots cropped, some not), in chronological order.]
What an amazing sequence of photos. The falcon was determined, but the kingfisher had skill in evading. Looked like a scene from Star Wars!
Thanks! ‘Star Wars’ was what we were thinking, too. (Helps that the falcon had a very stern, ‘imperial’ look to it.) At that distance, getting those head-on shots in focus was pretty lucky. (To be fair, Nikon’s AF system actually is pretty good.)