Peregrine Falcon at National Geographic Brazil

in Nature by Marcelo Krause — February 28, 2011 at 12:16 PM | 2 comments

When photographs at National Geographic Magazine are mentioned, very often we think about some far away and exotic location. Pictures taken in rivers filled with crocodiles or piranhas, deep inside an underwater cave, high on a mountain or in dense tropical forests. But the photo of the peregrine falcon that’s featured on National Geographic Magazine Brazil I took from the window of my apartment. Or something like that.

Since last October a peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) uses the top of a neighboring building as a hunting spot. The peregrine falcon is a migratory bird that spend the South American winter on its breeding grounds in the northern hemisphere. When the north winter arrives, he migrates south were he seems to be very well adapted to live in the city.

Many times I could see the bird across the street diving for food, fighting for territory or even staying put, seeming to observe life in the city below. When National Geographic Brazil confirmed they would run the article, I decided to try something out of the ordinary. My idea was to show the falcon and the city behind him. Such thing could be possible with a remote camera pointed towards a spot he was usually resting. But as it turned out, the task was not that simple. I needed first to ask for permission to mount the camera on the top of the neighboring building. Then find a way to fire the camera from more than 200ft away. And the plan also faced a lot of uncertainties like how the falcon would react to the camera and the ever changing light conditions.

To control the camera I choose to use the Nikon WT-4 with Camera Control Pro 2. That would allow me to see what the camera was seeing trough Live View. Besides that, Camera Control software would allow me to chose camera speed, aperture, ISO and change between video and photo. All of this from my laptop with a wireless connection. After I got permission to install the camera and had the setup ready, the falcon wouldn’t show up or the weather wouldn’t help. At first the bird was very wary of the camera and would not land at its field of view. Days went by until one afternoon I noticed that the falcon was not able to catch a prey at the end of the day. I had a hunch that he would came back the next morning to the same spot and hunt again. At 5:30 AM I installed the camera on the top of the building. The sun rose around 6:30AM and a few minutes later the falcon arrived and landed at the TV antenna a few meters above the camera. Then unexpectedly he jumped on the parapet and carefully walked to the  support of the lightning rod that was his usual hunting spot. As soon as he entered the cameras field of view I begun to record a video. When he looked to the camera I pressed the shutter. He was scared by the noise and flew away. I was able to take only one picture.

But I had the image I wanted: the falcon looking straight to the camera, his “mask” on the face clearly visible and the town behind him at sunrise.