!!! A day at the beach! Sunning, bathing and Fishing???? Look what I got!
August 17, 2013 - International, National and Local News
CPF Postmaster Reports:
Although a very late entry, (I must apologize), as just I found this e-mail and attached photos that had obviously been captured and filed away in one of my anti-spam folders!! Sadly, I have only just discovered this particular folder and going through it now. With more than 135 e-mail, its going to take me some time to get through it all,,, but there is some really interesting stuff!!!!!
This particular observation report was sent in to us almost a year ago to this very date, and was sent via the authors I-phone. The very short note included a report of an adult pair of peregrines hunting on a beach in Saskatchewan Canada last year in August of 2013. The pair were actually observed “fishing”!
While the pair were unsuccessful in actually catching a live fish themselves during this observation period, - (with more than a dozen attempts diving into the shallow water after small feeder fish),, they did manage to find a rather large (but very fresh dead fish) that has washed up on the beach. So fresh in fact, that the gulls had not yet discovered it. Although, I’m sure if I was a gull, that I would be hanging around with a determined pair of adult peregrines in hunting mode!
While this type of happening would be something that you would expect to see out in British Columbia with the Peales sub species of the peregrine falcon, it is not something that you would see with our interior peregrine subspecies…. Then again, the anatum sub-species as we knew it is really no more given all of the cross-breeding that has happened, so, you never know now. Clearly this pair doesn’t look at all typical of the Peales sub species of the peregrine falcon as we know it, but you never know now what linage this pair have come from?
The Peale’s Falcon, Falco peregrinus pealei, is one of the original three North American subspecies of the Peregrine Falcon. This race was first identified by the ornithologist Robert Ridgway in 1873, named in honor of Titian Ramsay Peale, and like the original three north American peregrine sub-species, is (or was) quite distinct in its appearance. The Peale’s peregrine sub-species are the largest subspecies of “Peregrines” anywhere in the world and cold only be found in the western coast lines of the northern parts North America.
The final photo, pictures the adult male standing on the dead fish, almost to suggest that he is trying to deceive his female mate in believing that he had been successful in his efforts 
lol
Hmmmm, interesting behaviour indeed! Cormorants beware!!
Enjoy.
