liqingxu100
A Brush with Death
Today (Dec. 03, 2016) around 8:00AM, I was lucky to witness an amazing event about a predator (a falcon) and a prey ( a Dove). The event happened at a cliff on the west side of hudson river not far away from New York city. A young male falcon caught a dove and quickly perched to a branch sticking out of the cliff. The dove is apparently live and well under falcon's left talon. The dove was fighting hard (I mean really hard) to get away from falcon's grip. For a few seconds, the Dove indeed seems free and ready to escape the death. In this picture (one of the whole sequence and the background is the cliff and light condition is bad), you can see the Dove seems flying backward and its wing was broken, its feathers are flying. You can see the desperate beg in Dove's eye. Falcon's left talon still left with Dove's feathers (probably a piece of Dove's body) and he is looking directly into Dove's eye, wing widely spread and is in full attack mode. Dove indeed got away for a few feet from the perch but falcon is just so fast and it snapped the Dove right away and this time no escape. Without seeing the event unfolding, you never would imagine this. Usually falcon brings back preys to perch and preys are mostly dead. This dramatic event shows just a small example of wonder of nature and it is pure luck being able to capture this.
A Brush with Death
Today (Dec. 03, 2016) around 8:00AM, I was lucky to witness an amazing event about a predator (a falcon) and a prey ( a Dove). The event happened at a cliff on the west side of hudson river not far away from New York city. A young male falcon caught a dove and quickly perched to a branch sticking out of the cliff. The dove is apparently live and well under falcon's left talon. The dove was fighting hard (I mean really hard) to get away from falcon's grip. For a few seconds, the Dove indeed seems free and ready to escape the death. In this picture (one of the whole sequence and the background is the cliff and light condition is bad), you can see the Dove seems flying backward and its wing was broken, its feathers are flying. You can see the desperate beg in Dove's eye. Falcon's left talon still left with Dove's feathers (probably a piece of Dove's body) and he is looking directly into Dove's eye, wing widely spread and is in full attack mode. Dove indeed got away for a few feet from the perch but falcon is just so fast and it snapped the Dove right away and this time no escape. Without seeing the event unfolding, you never would imagine this. Usually falcon brings back preys to perch and preys are mostly dead. This dramatic event shows just a small example of wonder of nature and it is pure luck being able to capture this.