[Posted by Chuck Almdale]

Link to 2023 National Audubon Society winners.
The best 100 of almost 9,000 entries.
Clear, sharp, well-framed, interesting, unusual views, unusual behaviors, unusual angles.

Among the 100 top photos is #82 by Trish Oster, local bird photographer who occasionally joins us on our Malibu Lagoon bird walks. I had the chance to talk to her recently and she sent me a copy of this and a few other photos I’ll be posting in the near future. I had to reduce it in file size from 3329 Kb to 570 Kb to get it onto our site, so there probably is a slight degradation in quality and it’s not as large as on the NAS site.

Trish says:
This is my photo that made it into the 2023 Audubon Top 100. It is of 2 juvenile Peregrine Falcons. They had just fledged and the bird on the left was flapping its wings and kept hitting its sibling in the head, which perturbed the youngster as you can see its expression in the photo!

This particular female (Maxine)  is around 10 years old now.  
She arrived quite a few years ago and killed the resident female. We do not know where she came from. 

The father to these chicks was banded 02Z, and nicknamed “two zee,” locally spelled “Tuzee.” If I remember correctly, I believe his tag indicated he was from the Portland Oregon area and he was around 13 years old. My photo is from June 2023.

02Z disappeared last year while the 2 new chicks had just gotten old enough to fly around a little. He never returned and was determined to have died. There have also been reports that he was found dead and had been attacked and killed.

Maxine raised the two chicks all by herself. Catching prey and feeding them and fending off attacks from male Peregrines trying to take over and kill the chicks. The two chicks fledged successfully.

The NAS website has the following photo information:

Category: Amateur
Location: Point Fermin, San Pedro, California
Camera: Canon EOS R6 with a Canon RF100-500mm f/4.5-7.1 L IS USM lens;
1/2000 second at f/7.1; ISO 5000>
Behind the Shot: I took this photo when three Peregrine Falcon fledglings I watched were still working on their flight skills. The young falcon on the left stretched and flapped its wings, getting the courage up to take flight. The morning was overcast, which I prefer for photography, as I feel it creates a softer look to my photos. I upped my shutter speed a little higher to compensate for the wing movement and in expectation for the suspected takeoff. (Which happened two frames later!) When I snapped the photo, the falcon on the right looked straight at me. I often wonder how these fledglings are faring. Getting the opportunity to photograph them was a magical experience.