Peregrine falcons are famous for their sky diving speed. How to measure it? Dive with them.
In this video a British falconer taught his female peregrine, Lady, to stoop at a yellow lure from a hot air balloon. Then he took her up with two skydivers who strapped together and jumped, holding the lure.
Lady followed in a stoop and caught up to them within seconds. To do so she had to accelerate to over 180 mph. Perhaps she thought they were going a little slowly. The divers saw her play in the air nearby as they fell.
In the end Lady got her prize and proved that peregrines dive faster than humans.
Of course they do. Peregrines are the original sky divers. 😉
(video from BBC Worldwide on YouTube)
Go Lady!!! Great film Kate. Looking forward to hearing you on Sunday.
Nice video.
There is of course the old “urban legend” so to speak. . . that there was a PEFA during WW II who passed a dive bomber in a training dive that was going 275 mph!
Talk about tearing up the eyes! 😉
Great clip! But they obviously have clocked me driving home from work on a Friday 😉
Wonderful clip — and didn’t it look like so much fun?! Skydiving’s already on the Bucket List; maybe I should amend it to Skydiving with Peregrines? 😉
Just an absolutely wonderful clip of happiness personified by these two men and a pf .