From the wild 70th celebrations in Norfolk, the second 70th birthday celebration of 2024 took us under the channel by rail to the land of chocolate, coffee, pastries, beer and, seemingly, peregrine falcons!
Despite watching Martin McDonagh’s ‘In Bruges’ the night before, the capital of West Flanders was a first time encounter for me. In between the coffee, chocolate and beer tasting I somehow managed to find some moments to capture this unfamiliar land with a camera.
What I wasn’t expecting to encounter was the active (and vocal) family of peregrine falcons. We first caught sight of them on our initial walk out to the market square, three of them in fact. A cacophony of shrill squawks from overhead revealed what looked like one or two adults “encouraging” a juvenile out of the territory (or a single adult nudging two youngsters out). I caught sight of one later that evening. Seated on the square after dark that familiar raptor shape took flight from the famous Belfort bell tower, momentarily illuminated by the floodlights before disappearing into the black sky. It reminded me of a piece I watched on London’s peregrines using the capital’s artificial lights to hunt passing prey by night.
You can probably imagine how I felt about only have my wide angle lenses with me, but that didn’t impact the utter thrill of every sighting we had of the falcons every time we ventured out. Here’s some shots taken in between those times…
