Was doing a google search t’other day and as usual managed to get lots of info, most of it—irrelevant to my original enquiry. That I should have been surprised.

It was a simple question about how far can you see to the horizon. I live on the Western Victorian Lava Plains. The plains extend 350 km east-west. So I was wondering as I stand in the open paddock on flat ground, how far can I see in all directions. Seems the general consensus is around 5km. Mind my ophthalmologist will tell you at that distance most of what I see would be pretty blurry.

Why, no doubt you are wondering, and what bought this inquisitiveness on?

Sky Dancing

The area in which I was standing is part of the territory of a pair of Brown Falcon. As she prepares for a nesting season, they tend to spend a lot of time sky dancing. Pursing one another across the sky with much calling and aerial displays.

This pair are mostly human intolerant (Me too!) so getting close is no easy matter.

The winds have been high for the past couple of weeks, and on this day there were gusts of 50kph or more. The strong winds seems to give the birds an extra enthusiasm. Standing in the open paddock it was easy to see them scoot across the sky, from horizon to horizon.
If you’ve never seen or heard a pair of Brown Falcons pair-bonding, I’d hope one day you can. It is accomplished with lots of aerial antics and much raucous calling.

From where we stood we are able to see them sweep across the entire sky. So quickly and so far that sometimes they disappeared from sight. It was humbling to see these birds flash back and forth covering several kilometres either side of where I stood in mere seconds. It would take me 15 minutes to walk back to IamGrey in the carpark.

They also were working quite high up, so any photos I made really are at a distance. These may not be the most useful pics I’ve made, but worth sharing.

Lots of flying close together, quite a few times one or the other was flipped upside down or even one on top of the other with only metres seperation. They were so fast on the wind, and so high that the normal harassment by Magpies and others just couldn’t get started. Even if a Maggie had made her best vertical ascent, the Falcons would have been a kilometre or more away by the time she got anywhere near to the height.

In the end they disappeared to a tree-line way down the range, and perhaps that is where this year’s clutch will take place. Time, will tell