I have been hoping for a flight shot like this and thought that I could only capture it in my mind. I really lucked out when the opportunity arose. In this shot, note that the falcon's head is always held in a horizontal position no matter what the angle of attack.

Here, the falcon nicknamed Digit was chasing a young falcon away from its airspace. The two kings of speed had just pulled out of a dive close together. Without slowing down, they banked sharply in a tight radius arc and came towards me like rockets.

Nikon D500 w/ 300mmf4D+1.4X
Thank you all very much for your visits and comments.
(Taken on Jan 18, 2018, Alberta Grain Terminal)

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Flying at its best. The Gyrfalcon, the high speed superstar from the high Arctic puts on spectacular airshows to show off its hunting prowess in the sky above the Alberta Grain Terminal.

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Prairie Falcon, a finely tuned, agile aerial hunter caught a rock pigeon @ Alberta Grain Terminal.

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Prairie Falcon at Alberta Grain Terminal (Taken on Nov 4, 2017).

Rather than tail-chase a flock of pigeons and catching the one that doesn't react quickly enough, the falcons at AGT employ little stoops - diving a short distance to intercept and catch the pigeon in mid-air.

The falcon in a stoop is so fast that most of the time, it leaps clean out of my camera's field of view. The images I'd managed to get are mostly of questionable quality but they're also the ones I worked the hardest to obtain. Hopefully, with some luck, I'll get the shot this winter.

300mm f4D +1.4X

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Prairie Falcon and the pigeon with the Alberta Grain Terminal Building in the background.
Nikon 300mmf4D+ 1.4X

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