I’m pleased to see that Solo got a galah yesterday. I watched her the day before chasing (unsuccessfully) a black-faced cuckoo-shrike (a reasonably large passerine) using the roost as a launching pad. The cuckoo-shrike was not stupid and swooped in and out of the trees, with Solo in hot pursuit and much too close to the trees for comfort. As I was watching, it occurred to me that perhaps that was how she hurt her leg ie she banged into a branch while hunting.
I took a photo of her before she took off and the leg is obviously still a problem; it was also still trailing as she was flying.
Cilla (trying to sort out her flood-damaged land and tree plantings, that have just emerged from 6m of floodwaters and mud).
Great photo of Solo, she looks very healthy and beautiful! Let’s hope the leg mends before her parents encourage her to move on.
Good news about Solo’s hunting capabilities, but let’s hope she refrains from crashing into trees to catch her prey! Not such good news, to hear about your flood-damaged land, Cilla. 6 m’s, you say!!! My goodness! So sorry to hear that. I have been following the news about the flooding in Queensland, after many years of drought. What a disaster! And our/your peregrines are oblivious to it all, I imagine!
It’s good to read that Solo can catch prey, despite her injured leg.
Terrible news about the flooding. The older plants and trees may have survived, I really hope so.
We spotted a 10-year old female peregrine here in the San Francisco Bay Area with a similar injury. We don’t know when or how she injured her left leg but it always hangs down when she is flying. She favors it when standing but she can grasp with it, can scratch, and can tuck it when standing on her good leg. We speculate it could be a hip injury. We noticed when she hunts she often skims low over the waters and levees in the area – perhaps due to her injury. Perhaps she injured it when impacting prey in a stoop and has adopted a different method of hunting. But she is surviving so hopefully Solo will manage too!
Hi Craig,
thanks for your words of encouragement and hope. We can all but guess how these sorts of injuries occur but based on your local observations in SF your assumption of injury to the hip sounds anatomically correct! We took some close-up shots of Solo on top of the tower the other day (see “Fledgling Solo” photo section) and you can tell her leg is out of whack. Based on her supreme flying skills that we’ve watched recently it seems to have little effect when in mid-air. Frustrating not being able to catch her and get her checked out but while Solo is hunting, flying and surviving we should leave her to nature.
Thanks again for your information,
Scott