Friday, 1 February 2013

[Maine-birds] Peregrine kill in Gardiner

I’m a little late in reporting this but yesterday morning as I pulled into the access road to the municipal parking lots along Cobbossee Stream in Gardiner, I glanced overhead to see a Peregrine Falcon barely 20 feet above me laboring to gain altitude with a dead Ring-billed Gull in its talons. As it dodged the wires and with the moving traffic and buildings adding to the confusion, it let go of the thoroughly dead gull which flopped down beside a startled fork lift driver who was unloading a pallet from a truck for the local hardware store. The Peregrine gained altitude and began soaring over the stream and then dove at a nearby soaring adult Bald Eagle, as if it were just annoyed with what had just happened. It then got all the town pigeons up and flying about before it headed back over the Kennebec. A few minutes later the fork lift operator carried the gull carcass over to the bank of the stream so presumably something may have had the opportunity to enjoy the meal even if not the Peregrine.

 

Jeff Wells

 

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