Peregrine Falcon

The surprise sighting of this Peregrine Falcon overshadows my hesitancy to post such a poor photo. I stopped yesterday to check out the very small Pioneer Park in Independence.  When I got out of the car the first thing I heard where a couple of Crows.  Then I spotted three European Starlings high in a tree, and heard a Steller’s Jay.  As I walked down to Ash Creek I picked up the insistent cooing of a Eurasian Collard-dove.  All these bird are ones that I would expect to find in such an urban setting.  At the creek I added a Black-capped Chickadee, a Western Scrub Jay, and a signing Ruby-crowned Kinglet, all nice birds but not unexpected.  Across the creek, high in a distant tree I spotted the silhouette of a bird. Looking at it closer with my binoculars I could not make an identification, but it did look like some kind of hawk.  Out came my trusty camera with the 50x zoom, and after several photos I checked the review screen and zoomed in even closer,   Voilà---a Peregrine Falcon, not at all what I was expecting in this wooded urban area. Afterwards I put together the fact the Monmouth-Independence Sewage Ponds with a large supply of wintering ducks was not that far to the west of the park.  Peregrine Falcons are known to take advantage of such locations.