Larry's Gallery:   Grey Falcon (1/2)

FALCONIFORMES: Falconidae

Falco hypoleucos  

Vik and I had been on the road for a few days now doing thousands of kilometres and plenty of bird photography in South Australia.

It was the middle of a hot autumn day in the shadeless, dry and stoney desert just off the Strzelecki Track.

Regardless of the conditions though we were keen. Vik was energetically birding a few hundred metres away from the car. I was asleep in the passenger seat.

I don't know what awoke me from my slumber (I suspect it was a loud girly scream from Vik - which he denies) but as my eyes opened and I looked out upon the vivid blue sky I saw a Grey Falcon zoom across it.

For a split second I thought I was still dreaming but then I scooped up my camera and ejected myself out of that car quicker than a pilot from a crashing jet.

Fortune smiled on me one more time and the Grey Falcon, which I now saw was in the company of a second Grey Falcon, for some reason wheeled around one time allowing me to snap off one shot before they headed further away.

I continued to take a few photos as they moved off but they were a bit too far away for a decent shot.

A chuffed and puffed Vik then arrived and we animatedly celebrated our good fortune in seeing this bird the pinnacle of our entire trip and laughed at each other's story on what had occurred.

Vik still denies making any girly scream the day a Grey Falcon almost speared into his head but I have no other explanation for why I should have awoken at the exact moment a Grey Falcon zipped across my vision through a small portion of sky defined by a car window.