Nature Watch, Your Flora and Fauna Photos and Stories

Francis often makes an appearance on an other thread but here he is on one of his daily visits to our garden today 🥰

I wanted to respond to you but I needed to wait for my friend to send me more bird pictures. I’m the same as you any “good” wildlife photo I get is pure chance and taken by a cellphone. But a local guy I’ve done some work for and subsequently met on hiking trails is retired and really dove into bird photography. He will send me some on occasion and I always marvel at how damn good they are. I see him with a bag of what looks like good cameras on the trails he probably spends a lot of time waiting but you can tell he likes it and brings him happiness. His couple most recent. I wonder how difficult it is to learn. I was trying to get a hummingbird pic with my phone a while back but he kept moving out of frame then took off.

A couple from this past weekends camping trip taken on the iPhone.

My buddies bird pics which it seems like he may have taken this morning, unless it was yesterday the text is a bit unclear

Another one from my buddy Charles it’s a falcon begins with P sorry my memory isn’t great but damn this may be one of his best

He did well to ‘catch’ a snap…The peregrine is renowned for its speed, reaching over 320 km/h (200 mph) during its characteristic hunting stoop (high-speed dive),making it the fastest bird in the world, as well as the fastest member of the animal kingdom…

Damn I didn’t know all that I was just thinking “damn that’s a cool bird” I know he is aware of every bird he takes a picture of I’m gonna to ask him to educate me a bit more.

Its for flood prevention but for a while we get a new lake which the birds appreciate.
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Here is another amazing Peregrine fact... It is not easy to breathe at 200mph with no helmet on :0)
Peregrine Falcons avoid damage during high speed flight due to their nostrils. On the opening of the nostril, there is a small cone that protrudes outwards. This feature (also known as “baffles”) essentially deflects shockwaves of air away from the nasal passage and so avoid lung damage.

“Jet aircraft face a wind problem similar to the peregrine falcon. When they move at supersonic speeds, their engines can “choke”. This means that air moving in front of the engine appears to hit a wall of resistance and flows around instead of through the engine and stalling results. From studies of the falcon’s nostril, engineers fashioned a metallic cone in the opening of the jet engine. They found that air entered and fed the engine as required for flight. The aircraft cones can be observed at the center of large jet engines. They are a successful solution to a serious flight problem, supplied by the Peregrine Falcon.”

“Aircraft designers have imitated the falcon’s breaking trick in modern jets. Fighters that fly at supersonic speeds, like the SR-71 “Blackbird,” have a falcon’ like cone at the intake where air is pulled into the jet engine, to slow down the flow of air. These inlet cones maintain proper air flow and air pressure into the jet’s compressors and turbine.”