It's Perigrine Time!

Now first...before I begin this blog I want to say  that I did not have my camera with me....sadly. Past experiences continue to show me time and time again, that if you forget your camera, 'they will come'. "THEY" can be anything, but 'they will come' and one will be left in utter excitement and foaming at the mouth with nothing to show for it. 

This is a blog that perfectly exemplifies the combination of  'they' and 'no camera'.....

You see it all started off as I was in the process of testing a few spotting scopes. I was looking for a solid 65 spotting scope and ordered in a pair from B & H to test. Of course, 'ordering in' implies 'payment for as well' but B & H has an excellent return policy as long as they are returned within 30 days and are in excellent shape. Thus my 65 spotting spotting scope quest started with a day looking at a Kowa TSN 660 compared to a Pentax 65mm. So I trounced out the door with two scopes in hand, one tripod, my note book (you know, to jot down good stuff) closed the door.....the Canon with 400mm lens was left in the closet, up stairs....over there someplace to the right of me --similar to where it sits now, as I sit here blogging.

To make matters short on the technical side of things dealing with the scopes..... Around Gull Pond I went ($(&#(&%^#(&(*%&#(#) and then I turned down the first leg on Wildlife Drive ($#*$#*$*$#)(#*) and swung around the back side ()#$*)#*)(*#) .... Okay, enough of the technical stuff as I try to write in Charles Kuralt fashion.

At the wayside corner of the back side of Wildlife Drive and just onto the onset of the lengthy return leg on the same drive, ...right there in the corner overlooking the bay was a slew of ducks. ...way out there. Okay, a perfect chance to see what these scopes could do. I jumped into the passenger seat and rolled (well; more liked pressed the button down...rolled? Nah....) the window down and aimed one of the scopes at the ducks; hundreds of yards out in the bay. I aimed.....took a look again at what I was aiming at...scanned around me and there...I mean it, about 15 yards in front of me sitting on a mound of decaying and matted, reeds was this Perigrine Falcon. It was just starring at me. Whoa Nelly..... I mean, can one say Whoa Nelly any louder within their head so as not to scare the creature? Whoa Nelly!

I took my scope....not sure which one it was....and focused on the Falcon. Needless to say, the scope honed in on the falcon nicely....as it should being only 15 yards from it. This guy had just eaten as it came furnished to my eyes with a bloody cap on the right hand side of it's head and the breast had blood on the feathers. I missed a massacre of sorts just by minutes, in my calculation. 

It (Or 'THEY" ...as I relate back to the opening paragraph) was staring at me.....I had one enlarged glass eye staring at it. We remained that way for 15 minutes. I tried to grab my i phone and shoot thru the scope but here I was resting the scope on the car window ledge with one hand, attempting to move my iPhone up in position with the other hand and see if I could align the lens with the eye-piece and somehow move another unknown third hand in place to click the camera.  It didn't work. 

There were two cars in back of me, both shooting away. One guy had a canon, and by that I don't mean Canon, but more like a canon as it reached out the window a few feet....I am sure he got lovely shots. 

But I had none.....I had two scopes, no camera....and 'they' came..... I do have among other things memories of this fine camera-less day of a Perigrine Falcon nicely nestled and satisfied greatly as it sat upon the reeds.