NewZealand Falcon

Photographing a native NewZealand Falcon has been on my wish list for a long time now. I was prepared to go to great lengths to make this happen, but as it happened, I had no need to look any further than a few hundred meters from where I was living.

I was sitting at home one day editing away at the previous days photos when there was a knock on my door, it was Hamish from the farm down the road. My landlords had told him about my photography, so when he saw his local NewZealand Falcon visiting, he was kind enough to zip down to my place to invite me to photograph the little guy.

Unfortunately when we got there he was gone, but what I did see was why he hung about the place. The big silo next to the milking shed provides feed for the livestock and hundreds and hundreds of hungry sparrows.

So a couple of weeks later I got a phone call from Hamish telling me the Falcon was back. In a mad rush I put some pants on, collected my stuff and high tailed it down the road and shot these photos!

This is what attracted this apex predator

572 SPARROW LINE-UP - GREYTOWN

573 SPARROW LINE-UP - GREYTOWN

569 NEWZEALAND FALCON - GREYTOWN

Lunch today consisted of two Sparrows. The first was a quick zip and swoop terminating about 30m from the silo. The second was nabbed about 300m into the neighbouring paddock. I figure he spotted it flying in the open and rocketed after it like an F-16 taking down a 1950’s Mig (Jet plane talk there) - very very COOL !!!

After each catch he perched on his favourite fence post for a well earned munch.