Back when I was a kid the whole family would gather round the TV console for another exciting episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, with the host, Marlin Perkins. Today, at the office, we got a little taste of that show right on our very own ledge.A coworker asked me, "Liem, do you have your big camera with you?"
"Yes, why?"
"Come see this".

Damn. All these years of carrying my gear with me paid off. A peregrin falcon was talon-deep in another bird, mosty likely a pigeon. The falcon was mostly likely living on the Washington Mutual Tower (hence the title of this entry) across the street.

 

 

My office is on the 12th floor of a 13 story building with a nice, wide 16 inch ledge all the way around it. Typically all we get are curious seagulls. This was something entirely different. A few people were disgusted by the display, but a number of us were just enthralled by the spectacle. Feathers were literally flying all over.

The whole display took about 15 minutes before the falcon winged away, dropping the carcass onto the glass awning over the sidewalk below.

To capture the photos I used a Canon 10D and a 70-200mm F4L lens at ISO800. They're a touch grainy, but I wanted to be sure to have enough speed on the shutter to freeze the falcon through the polarizer. The polarizer was a necessity in removing the reflections on the glass, but costs 2 stops.

The rest of the photos can be seen at my photo site.

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