Casualty of the Chase - Confirmation

I have just received the results back from the Predatory Bird Monitoring Scheme, they do an absolutely marvellous job and many thanks go to them.
As suspected they confirmed that it was a Tiercel and had been in a collision, most certainly with the chain link fence it was found next to, sadly an unfortunate end.
The diagnosis was “Severe haemorrhage throughout body cavity and in skull, also broken bone in upper neck” thankfully the Tiercel would have died instantly.

It now remains as to how long the Falcon will be on her own, boosted by this year’s juveniles/immatures, I would say it would not be too long, perhaps even a migrant Tiercel.
Since the death of the Tiercel on September 7th I have been looking, as have others for the Falcon, in short she seemed to have disappeared and was not showing at her usual rest/lay up points.
On Sunday she reappeared I am glad to say, given her location I would expect her to become bonded with a Tiercel by Christmas, and hopefully well before the breeding season kicks in.
If she does bond I think it unlikely that they would be successful 1st time round, more likely in 2014/15 especially if it is an immature male.
Having said that, they never do anything straightforward and will most likely prove me wrong, hopefully so.

The Falcon on Sunday-hopefully it will not be too long before she attracts a new Tiercel

On a pretty recent post “Prey and Nest boxes” I blogged a selection of feathers taken from one particular site, I am only ever able to collect 50% of prey and feathers on this site as much of the structure is inaccessible and much disappears through the elements.
A photo of the feathers was sent off for analysis, I had a rough idea what most were, Peregrine Primary and Tail and Green Woodpecker feathers tend to stand out.

However one feather was identified as a Bittern, I am struggling to believe that a peregrine would willingly take on something of this size no doubt at night when they arrive as migrants to winter in local areas. The fact that I only came across one feather may point towards a possible territorial defence, they do this with Grey Herons but this would mean that it possibly happened in the winter. In this case they would not be so territorial so why risk going for/attacking something of this size which is also very dangerous?

The feather was found on the roof of the structure along with the others and has been in my garage since last winter in a batch I collected at the same time in January if I remember correctly.
A bit of a mystery but I just can’t see it happening, peregrines as we know are very aggressive, not as intelligent as Corvids but intelligent enough not to risk potential injury for no reason.
Another possibility is that it was flying over, possibly in moult and the feather came out naturally and drifted down to the roof.

Who knows, certainly a strange one.