As well as the Grey heron I blogged about yesterday, my jaunt in to Cardiff produced other excellent bird sightings, as I’d hoped it would. This was one of the other stars, one of the pair of Peregrine falcons that live around the dome and clock tower and rooftop of Cardiff’s City Hall (photo below taken a few years ago but I thought it would help to illustrate the location).

When I arrived, this Peregrine had just returned to its dining place with a lunchtime snack, probably one of the local feral pigeons. As it plucked its prey, feathers flew out in all directions.

Then, something – perhaps the arrival of its mate – prompted the bird to abandon its food to fly across from the dragon on top of the dome to the nearby tower, and, by sheer chance, I caught the take off.

A little later, I watched a sneaky Magpie making its way slowly up towards where the abandoned food lay, presumably hoping to scavenge a snack, but the Peregrine spotted it, swooped across from the clock tower and chased the Magpie down and across the front of the building. Somehow, the Magpie managed to nip on to a window ledge, avoiding the Peregrine by inches. Sadly, I didn’t get any footage of that drama but it was magnificent to watch.