Fighting Lanner Falcons

Long time followers of my blog know that I started my photography journey photographing birds before adding wildlife and landscape genres to my portfolio, so to say I was in my element when we encountered a pair of Lanner Falcons fighting would be the understatement of the century.

Come on, let’s go!

Location

We are regular visitors to Hermanus (about 90 minutes outside Cape Town, South Africa) and we always combine it with a trip to De Hoop Nature Reserve which is another 90 minutes in the direction of Cape Agulhas, the southern most tip of Africa. Just outside the small town of Bredasdorp you turn onto a 40km stretch of gravel road that runs along the farms in the area, this is the hotspot for bird photography. Species often seen along this road includes Spotted Eagle Owl, Secretary Bird, European Roller, Giant Kingfisher, Steppe Buzzard, Black-winged Kite, Jackal Buzzard, Cape Vulture and Lanner Falcon (to name just a few of the big ticks).

Sighting

We had just left De Hoop and was enroute back to Bredasdorp when I spotted a Lanner Falcon perched on a pole next to the road. The light for photography would normally be too harsh but as the clouds had rolled in the photography shooting time had been extended, so I stopped!

The Falcon was not interested in me at all, so I waited and waited for it to show it’s eye to me - that is when I realised that it had spotted something in the nearby field. All of a sudden it dived into the grass and when it took to the air I could see that it had caught a striped field mouse.

As it did a flyby close to our vehicle I noticed some movement out the corner of my eye, it was moving FAST heading directly towards the Falcon! I quickly realised that it was ANOTHER Falcon and boy did it mean business - the original Falcon dived down towards the field with the pursuer close behind.

The Falcon with the field mouse quickly braced for impact and adopted a defensive pose by lifting it’s wings up to cover it’s head and prized meal - you can see in the image below just how close the challenger flew by.

The challenger did a 2nd loop which was further away than the 1st one which allowed the Falcon to drop it’s wings slightly. At this point I thought the attack was over but as you will see later this was not the case at all.

The 3rd flyby was again at close quarters forcing the Falcon back into full defensive mode.

The challenger did not do a 4th flyby but rather admitted defeat and surprisingly decided to land right next to the original Falcon and simply watched as the Falcon ate it’s well deserved meal without any sign of aggression - nature is truly amazing!

Till next time…