Hi All,

About 10:00 this morning while outside in the yard, I glanced up at a snag about 150 yards from our house where we occasionally (not often enough) see one or two PEREGRINE FALCON perched. There were two birds there that clearly weren't crows, and the binocs confirmed two Peregrines. I set up my scope and had great views of the adult female, and an obstructed view of the second, much smaller bird. Whether the smaller bird was the tiercel or this year's fledgling, I'm not sure, though I would guess the adult based on its lighter and less marked breast and belly coloration relative to young birds I've seen. Presumably these are two of the Snoqualmie Falls birds - the falls is less than two miles direct line from our house.

The female was clearly hungry and hunting as her head movements were frequent and focused. Within a minute of having the scope on her, she took off on a beeline toward our house, clearly with something in her sights. She flew directly over Trisha (who was setting up camera gear - too late, unfortunately) and I no more than about 60 feet off the deck - a highly impressive sight! She was not in a stoop, but her flight line was angling downhill and I would estimate she was making 70-80 miles per hour while giving the impression that she was barely working. All I could think was that I didn't want to be what she had in her sight picture when she lit the afterburners (if she even needed to). Unfortunately her flight path took her on the other side of our house and out of sight, so if she made a kill we didn't get to see it. When we turned back to look at the snag, the second bird was gone as well.

John Tubbs
Snoqualmie, WA
johntubbs at comcast.net
www.tubbsphoto.com