Sunday?the west viewing platform of the Edmonds marsh was the source of many
good Mother's Day bird photos, but the most spectacular was a series I took of a
peregrine falcon with a sandpiper in its talons.?? The rest of the story:

I was standing on the west viewing platform looking east when I saw a bird
flying north across the marsh. From its size, shape, and wing beat, I thought it
might be one of the resident Cooper's or sharp-shinned hawks, so I began firing
away with my Canon 7D?+? big(?) honkin' 100-400 zoom.?? Just as the raptor
approached the fir trees which separate the marsh boardwalk from the doggie day
care, I thought I saw it extend its talons, as though to grab a small bird from
the top of one of the fir trees before it flew over the trees.


Looking at?the camera's?viewing screen, I saw that my photos were all
silhouettes. The raptor, which I still thought was a small hawk, was holding a
small bird in its talons.? I later downloaded the photos and lightened &
enlarged the ones of the raptor and its prey. Imagine my suprise and excitement
when the processed photos revealed the "hawk" to be a peregrine falcon. Its prey
wasn't a bird plucked off the fir tree, but one of the sandpipers I had earlier
photographed walking around the mudflats in the marsh. The falcon might have
been perched in one of the trees on the south side of the marsh before it did a
"swoop and scoop" of the sandpiper.

Bill Anderson; Edmonds, WA.