Young Brown Falcon learns a few tricks

On the way to Papunya, west of Alice Springs, I watched a family of Brown Falcons, the parents giving lessons to the younger ones. An adult swooped down low and dropped something in a ditch by the side of the road. One of the younger ones came a few minutes later. It swooped in and then landed. I watched wondering what the adult had dropped. Even though my car was almost opposite the ditch, the young falcon was too intent on the morsel to worry too much about me sitting in the car. It walked along the top of the bank to start with, and then walked directly at me and down into the ditch. With the camera clicking away furiously, I paused as the falcon's head disappeared below the near bank. It popped up with nothing, then ducked again and finally came up with I think a frog. It walked back up the far side of the ditch and then turned and ate the frog in one gulp. I then flew off to a nearby tree and had a little bit of landing trouble. Silly stick got between its legs and it had a few goes at putting both feet on a branch either side of the offending branch, then repositioned via a short flight and eventually managed to settle with both feet on the one side of the offending stick. All wonderful experience for a young Brown Falcon, and fascinating to watch from a bird-watcher's point of view.

Brown Falcon