Malham Peregrines

I've visited Malham loads of times over the years but a couple of years ago in June I went there for a walk and witnessed the Malham peregrines fledging. For those who haven't been before the peregrines nest at the top of a very high rock face on Malham cove.

In June they start flying for the first time and due to the fact they have been closely surrounded by hundreds of humans day after day and I guess naivety. Those first few flights have the birds landing very, very close to people (which is great if you happen to be taking photos).

Since seeing this I have returned every year with 'Big Burtha' (my Sigma 150-500mm lens) and have watched and photographed them.

These are two of my favourite shots, one which was published by the Yorkshire Post newspaper. As I mentioned lots of the wildlife in the area gets used to people wandering round another example is the green woodpeckers, you can also get pretty close to these.

The past two years I've tracked the progress of the birds by watching the RSPB twitter feed as they have a small team there watching and tracking the birds progress. Its worth getting there early as the peregrines are harder to see the more they get used to flying.