Peregrine Falcon

[Isaac Grant]

Decided to take the afternoon off of work and head to the cliffs. I have never had luck there with the local Pergrines but yesterday my luck changed. From Alpine, New Jersey. The beautiful female was close and in perfect evening light and posed there for a long time right at the edge of the cliff. Also had great luck with the male which I will post as well.

Canon 1DX and Canon 500 f4 ii + 1.4x iii. ISO 640, F9, SS 1/2000. Lying on top of a stone and icy wall (my knees were not happy!).

Processed using DPP 4.6 and PS.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Wow, very nice image of the Falcon in nice light. Glad you got a nice shooting angle with a clean BG.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Very good even light and accurate colours, good details in the darker plumage. A fine shot.

[William Dickson]

Well done Isaac. Very nice detail, pose and HA. Worth takin the afternoon off.

TFS

Will

[Alex Becker]

Great light details and pose, especially the ruffled feathers. I haven't gotten a nice frame of one of these guys yet so very jealous

[Ian McLachlan]

That is just great .And she was trying to keep out the cold I suppose. Those feet [penguinised!]make it even more special and the light was perfect.Well done.

[David Salem]

Great looking frame Isaac! Love the pose and the details in this one and the lighting is perfect. Very nice Peregrine shot, congrats.

[annmpacheco]

really lovely Isaac, details including a bit of blood is wonderful. Well worth your efforts!

[Tomasz Zawadzki]

Congrats. Really nice shot.

[Bill Dix]

Terrific capture, Isaac. Love the subtle coloration of the breast, fluffed-up look, touches of blood, nice clear bg. And as Ian said so well, the "penguinised" feet. Congratulations! Was this at State Line? I've gotten some other raptors there, but never any luck with Peregrines.

[Isaac Grant]

Thanks everyone. Appreciate the nice comments. Funny I went from having no good shots of these birds to taking about 2000 shots of them over 2 hours and just about all of them are in perfect light with a perfect background. Have every head angle variation as well. Talk about going to have a hard time culling these images. The background is the Hudson River as I was shooting slightly down on the bird and had a big enough opening through the trees to shoot and not have branches in the way.

Bill yes this is from State Line. I have had zero luck all of the other times I was there, including striking out 3 times on the Peregrines and the Gyr that was there this winter. The birds were always perched well down the cliff every other time but Thursday. They were out in the open and at eye level. Had to walk down the entrance road towards where you come off the Palisades. Male and female were there. Left a few times but came back. Just a word of caution if you go, the State Troopers came by twice and chased photographers off of the road. Threatened to give tickets to people that did not have permits and had "professional" gear. They did not bug me as I was off the road and leaning on the stone wall but chased others off. There is only a few feet of room between the road and the stone wall so I made sure to lean on the wall and put my gear on the wall to stay as far off the road as possible.

[Bill Dix]

Always nice to have good luck, but better still to have the skill to take advantage of it. Thanks for the info. We always stop there on our way to or from New England, but I've never thought to walk further down the road.

[Daniel Cadieux]

What a perfect way to spend a day off! The flared feathers take this over the top. Great BG and neat, clean perch. I'll be sounding picky here, but I do wish the very tip of the bill was not touching the shoulder. Excellent opportunity and you took full advantage of it!

[Isaac Grant]

Thanks Daniel. I love picky in case people didn't know yet :w3. I have many extremely similar frames where the tip of the bill is not touching. Will work one up. Thanks.

[Joe Subolefsky]

Really nice love the light and the way the perch drops out of the frame.
I was there for the first time about a month ago and got lucky apparently they were right up top by the parking lot.

[stuart wanuck]

well done

[arash_hazeghi]

not much more to add here, a great frame of a handsome male. you did well, next sep is a dive or a bank :)

[Isaac Grant]

Thank you Arash. I actually had just that in mind when I went to the cliffs. I honestly was not even considering getting perched shots of the birds as typically they perch well down the cliff and very far out an at a crazy angle. Or they perch above a path and high up in a tree. So I went there trying to get a decent flight shot. Turns out that where they were perching was a heavily wooded side of the cliff and to get this shot I was shooting through a hole in the vegetation and kneeling in snow and leaning on a wall. So when the birds would fly there was no chance to get any flight shots from this spot. But often times they are flying at a more open area that I will try for them again at. Such amazing birds to photograph. Also, this is the female. I have shots of the male and even saw them mating but could not get pics as they were on a different part of the cliff.

[Glenn Conlan]

Keep at it Issac the flight shots will come. This is a super portrait well done