October 5, 2011 Peregrine Falcon kill.

While birding at Britannia Point along the Ottawa River at Deschenes Rapids this morning, I heard a loud squawking sound and looked over the river to the southeast and saw a Peregrine Falcon with a bird in its talons. Do to the distance, it was difficult to identify what species of bird.
As the Peregrine headed inland, it pecked the prey a couple of times while in flight.
Suddenly the Peregrine lost its grip and the bird fell to the river.
The falcon made a number of attempts to pluck the bird out of the water and finally after 3 or 4 passes, it picked the bird out of the water and flew right by us as we watched the drama unfold. As the Peregrine passed us, you could clearly see it was a Blue Jay in its talons. We last saw the falcon flying west up the channel and disappeared.

Peregrine Falcon with Blue Jay in talons.

After accidentally dropping the Blue Jay into the river the Peregrine Falcon made a number of attempts to recover the jay.

Peregrine locking onto Blue Jay.

Successful retrieval. You could see the water dripping off the dead jay.

Peregrine going for breakfast.

This juvenile Peregrine Falcon has demonstrated that it will likely be a very successful hunter!