Lunchtime Peregrine

I've taken lunchtime walks in and around Norwichs' Rosary cemetery and surrounding residential streets at least once a week for the last ten years or so. Some of these walks are real stomps to clear my head between meetings, some pass in a daze as I think about challenges at work and others [my favourites] are when I pause to take pictures and do a spot of birding with out binoculars.

Crap picture of a Peregrine over Norwich last week

During the week one walk started as a stomp, but as I walked up a side street with my head down against the wind a movement caught my eye and I instinctively looked up to see the distinctive low flying shape of a Peregrine as it flew past me and over the cemetery fence. Now I'm used to seeing Peregrines but the unexpected context and brief views left me doubting the sighting and keen for better views. So my stomp turned to a measured stroll as I walked downhill through the cemetery, constantly looking at the window of sky framed by the mature trees that grow here.

Just as I was about to walk out the cemetery gate into Rosary road I picked out the peregrine it's distinctive silhouette high above the cemetery.  As I walked down the road back to the office the bird drifted towards me and I took a few shots with my compact camera. Then it peeled away to half heartedly chase a gull, before giving up, at this point a woodpigeon flew over the office roof and did a sharp U turn when it saw the peregrine, which them drifted away to the south.