Watching Across the Cove

I was out early, this time to uniformly grey clouds. I walked up on to the cove to work on some photographs of the limestone pavement but almost immediately heard one of the peregrine falcons on the eastern wall. Try as I might I couldn't see the bird's position so kept photographing the landscape.

It was colder than I'd expected so I started to head back when I noticed movement on a branch about 100 metres away. I stopped, changed lens and started to look through the viewfinder. It was only by zooming in on the  viewfinder that I could see it was one of the falcons. Even then it was quite soft and indistinct.

I watched for about 15 minutes before thinking whether I could get closer. I hoped it wouldn't move while I repositioned. This shot was the best I got, still a good 50 metres away.  At least you can tell it was a bird.

I obviously got into its personal space as after a few more minutes it flew further away again. I decided to call it a day, not wanting to disturb the bird any further.

On getting back to the pub, I bumped into a gentleman who had spent 9 hours yesterday, on the cove, with his long telephoto camera, taking photographs of the birds in flight and including catching prey on the wing. That's dedication.

Afterwards we headed up to Askrigg and Hawes in Wensleydale to see more of the countryside of the dales. The weather was probably the worst of the week, grey and cool for most of the day. We ended up in Settle, at the Old Naked Man Cafe before winding our way back to Malham.