The early morning rain clouds were moving away, and we had coffee at one of the disabled children care centers.
What a luck, as on instinct, or as usual I took a walk with my camera.
The rain stopped earlier and according to the weatherman's crystal ball, we could expect a nice 25C high in the day. He was not wrong, as the skies cleared up a short time after we left the center.
For some obscure reason, I left my camera bag at the table and I only took my camera on the walk. It would cost me dearly and I will show you in here a bit later why.
So, come and join me on the walk.
Ever so slowly, the clouds became lighter in color as they moved over the mountains.
Let me introduce you to the Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus)
Now let me show you where I got the falcon on camera.
I took a walk as the center is on a very large property and something didn't look right to me at the top of the tree in the photo below.
A bit of a closer zoom and I thought it was a dove or a pigeon.
But no! That was no dove or pigeon as it was a junior Peregrine Falcon.
Yep, the real McCoy, and he looked me straight in the eye.
The peregrine is renowned for its speed, reaching over 320 km/h (200 mph) during its characteristic hunting stoop (high-speed dive), making it the fastest bird in the world, as well as the fastest member of the animal kingdom. According to a National Geographic TV program, the highest measured speed of a peregrine falcon is 389 km/h (242 mph). As is typical for bird-eating raptors, peregrine falcons are sexually dimorphic, with females being considerably larger than males.
The red low battery light on my camera started flashing and at the same time the peregine started fluffing his feathers. Normally when a bird starts to fluff, then they get ready to fly.
So, I fervently hoped that my battery would last, as I wanted to get the bird taking off from the tree.
But no go, as he started cleaning under his wings. And Pfft! my battery died. I rushed back at a slow high speed to get to my camera bag for a spare battery, but when I returned, the bird was long gone.
This was what the hill in the first photo looked like later in the day.
We like to support other nonprofits and by paying for coffee and a light meal at this center's art and coffee shop, means that that we are supporting them indirectly. As a bonus here today, I also got a few other very interesting photos that I will show you soon. The art section at the school is well attended and some great artists also put their works on show there.
Talking about art, a fellow Hivean visited one of our partnering nonprofits, as we wanted to show him some of our work. He was introduced to the CEO who joined us to show our Hive guest around and an unbelievably successful, true story about the discovery of a young artist's talent at the art section of the place was shared with our guest. I am sure that he will share the story soon in a post here on Hive.
I hope that you have enjoyed the story and the pictures.
And That's All Friends.
Photos by Zac Smith-All Rights Reserved.
Camera: Canon Powershot SX70HS Bridge camera.
