BirdingGirl

On June 16th, the Boston Peregrine Falcon (the remaining male of the Christian Science falcon pair ) stopped by our office's window ledge. I assume this is the male of the pair because he is so much smaller than the female that we were used to. Another noticeable trait is how big the male falcon's feet are. Just look at the size of those talons! You can see the falcon's nictitating membrane up on its right eye. I'm not sure the reason for this, perhaps his eye suffered an injury or infection and he was keeping it up to protect it. At least twice I saw him lower it to look directly at us but he then he put it immediately back up. Does anyone know a lot about nictitating membranes? They've always fascinated me in birds. Here's one of a red-tailed hawk nictitating membrane that came up when it was preening/scratching. In one of these photos you can see part of the falcon's ID band. It looks like it has the letter I and the number 7 on it.

Steve and I spent the weekend with my dad at the South Shore Antique Auto Club trading bee at Great Woods (a.k.a. Tweeter Center, a.k.a. Comcast Center) in Mansfield, MA. I've been going since I was 12 years old, helping my dad load up the trailer with his junk, set it up Saturday morning, and pack up what's left on Sunday afternoon. For the past couple years we've gotten spaces in Lot 9, which was previously used for vendor parking, but as the trading bee has grown they've started selling spaces up there. The lot is grass and gravel and usually reserved for people guys ripping it up with their mini-bikes, 4-wheelers, dirt-bikes and anything else loud and obnoxious. My dad really likes being up there though and we get good traffic and usually good sales since there aren't many other vendors around us. I saw a hawk land in a tree on the edge of the parking lot and of course grabbed my camera to try and get some good shots. Steve and I took turns with the camera. Her...