Today a large female peregrine landed on the ledge about 1022 h while Xavier was resting and he promptly left. The stranger was harassed by one or both of our falcons for a few minutes until she left…and then returned and poor Xavier was displaced again. She stayed over an hour and finally left of her own accord. She has a much spottier chest than Diamond, so quite easy to recognise. She was looking around curiously at the box as if it may have been unfamiliar to her (although it’s possible, of course, that this is an early offspring from this nest site).
There is also a lot of night hunting happening…this week Diamond outdid herself catching two prey two nights in a row. The second prey each night was brought to the box to cache, so I was able to identify them: a great crested grebe and a stubble quail, both gratefully accepted by Xavier early in the morning.
Here is a video of the interaction: https://youtu.be/Dk5BpW_AWvo
and an image of the rather handsome interloper
