I think we saw a gyrfalcon on saturday. Alex, is it possible? It was HUGE, bigger than any eagle I've ever seen. But it had pointy bent wings like a falcon, and very dark, almost black, on the underside. We saw it quite close up, near the north shore of Lake Erie, which I know is a hot spot for migration.
This is what drives birdwatchers crazy. I don’t want to criticize, and I know Sally has some experience, but you always get people who want you to tell them what they saw. Or rather, they want you to confirm what they think they saw, but they don’t really know. And if you don’t know what you saw then neither do I. In the absence of unmistakable field marks it’s amazing how difficult it can be to collect the necessary information to confirm an ID. It’s not impossible that you had a Gyr; the location is plausible, and the time of year is ok, though the birds are not really migratory but irruptive, moving south in larger numbers in some years more than others. But to get specific, a Gyr is about half the size of a Bald or Golden Eagle. The only bigger birds on the continent are California Condor and Steller’s Sea Eagle (often mistaken for a small airplane.) Unless you’re in the southwest or Alaska I’m pretty sure you didn’t see either of those. Unless you see the bird right next to another one you’re familiar with, size is very difficult to judge. Gyrfalcon is massive compared with other falcons, heavy in the body, with wings that are shorter and blunter than the classic falcon silhouette; it’s most often confused with Northern Goshawk. It can be dark to pale; the gray morph is most common, but dark birds are certainly more likely than white ones. Checking the rare bird alerts there are no recent sightings from Ontario, though that doesn’t prove anything. Gyrfalcon is quite rare in the northern US and southern Canada. Individuals are reported almost yearly in NY State, though these often turn out to have leather bands, or jesses, on their legs, which identifies them as escaped falconry birds, many of which are actually hybrids bred for sport. On the other hand, I can’t think of anything that easily “explains” what you saw. If seen well, a dark Gyr should have remiges (the outer wing feathers) lighter than the wing linings, similar to the Turkey Vulture pattern. If seen less well, well, it’s hard to say; at least it would look more falcon-like than something else might…
Gyrfalcon is a rare and fabled bird. Among literate types it is best know from a gloss on Yeats’ The Second Coming, a poem that holds more oft-quoted lines than any single work should bear…
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer:
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold…
alex, i think i saw a gryphon this morning while i was trekking across the scythian steppes with the mock turtle not more than 200 stathmos from the black sea. you think this is possible? or was it more likely a winged protoceratops that had reemerged from a wormhole created by a black hole lodged in the center of the earth?
When I hear "gyrfalcon" I think World of Warcraft.
THAT PROBABLY WASN'T A GRYPHFALCON birdy, SALLY!
I doubt you saw a gryphon, dave, it was almost certainly the much more common hippogryph.
story of my life. always a hippogryph, never a gryphon. who would ever put that beast on their coat of arms? well, ingres certainly had an eye for mythical creatures. and of course there are these immortal (and overpraised, if you ask me) lines from jarvis cocker:
Can you dance like a hippogriff?
Ma ma ma, ma ma ma, ma ma ma
Flyin' off from a cliff
Ma ma ma, ma ma ma, ma ma ma
Swooping down, to the ground
Ma ma ma, ma ma ma, ma ma ma
Wheel around and around and around and around
Come on, ah, come on, yeah!
Can dance you like a hippogriff? Yeah!
Before Worth1000TM there was Ingres.
so true. how did they even make art before photoshop?
Sorry and thanks, Alex. I got excited about the possibility and wanted to crow about it, but since I'm not sure I phrased it as a question.
We call that a "possible Gyrfalcon" (if you think it might have been) or a "probable Gyrfalcon" (if you think it really was) or if the intersection of honesty and optimism is at a lower level we call it an "unidentified raptor."
Did it look like this?
I'm going to have to demote to unidentified raptor. It was black, like maybe a black gyrfalcon, but it was too big. It bugs me though, because it distinctly did NOT have finger-like feathers on the wings like a golden eagle. And the wing shape was very falconesque. sigh. Maybe we were hallucinating.
Bad photos of a gyrfalcon.
amazing how unassuming they look while grounded and how fierce in flight.
I used to frequent Hawk Cliff (also on the north shore of Lake Erie) during fall migration. Members of the MacIlwraith Field Naturalists had a mist net set up to snag, band and track passing raptors. On the weekends they'd bring the birds over to show the crowds. What they did was slide the hawks into empty juice and tennis ball cans in order to transport them safely. They'd show up in a pickup truck with a little pile of cans with feet poking out. The birders would be immediately attempting to identify the hawks based on the size of can. The guy would hold up each can, grasping the talons in his hand, and then slide the can upwards. A scary, pissed off hawk would suddenly unfurl, with a mean eye darting around the crowd. The most common were the smallest falcons, kestrels, and they were also the most impressive because of their liquid black eyes and brilliant plummage. Also, they're feisty little buggers. I remember a kestrel sinking one of his uber-sharp claws deep into the soft bit of the guy's hand between the thumb and forefinger. Dude played it cool and didn't even wince. After a little educational tour of the bird and it's features the dude would hold it up high and let it go. Everyone spun around in synch with their binoculars watching it fly away.
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- sally mckay 3-27-2007 12:06 am
This is what drives birdwatchers crazy. I don’t want to criticize, and I know Sally has some experience, but you always get people who want you to tell them what they saw. Or rather, they want you to confirm what they think they saw, but they don’t really know. And if you don’t know what you saw then neither do I. In the absence of unmistakable field marks it’s amazing how difficult it can be to collect the necessary information to confirm an ID. It’s not impossible that you had a Gyr; the location is plausible, and the time of year is ok, though the birds are not really migratory but irruptive, moving south in larger numbers in some years more than others. But to get specific, a Gyr is about half the size of a Bald or Golden Eagle. The only bigger birds on the continent are California Condor and Steller’s Sea Eagle (often mistaken for a small airplane.) Unless you’re in the southwest or Alaska I’m pretty sure you didn’t see either of those. Unless you see the bird right next to another one you’re familiar with, size is very difficult to judge. Gyrfalcon is massive compared with other falcons, heavy in the body, with wings that are shorter and blunter than the classic falcon silhouette; it’s most often confused with Northern Goshawk. It can be dark to pale; the gray morph is most common, but dark birds are certainly more likely than white ones. Checking the rare bird alerts there are no recent sightings from Ontario, though that doesn’t prove anything. Gyrfalcon is quite rare in the northern US and southern Canada. Individuals are reported almost yearly in NY State, though these often turn out to have leather bands, or jesses, on their legs, which identifies them as escaped falconry birds, many of which are actually hybrids bred for sport. On the other hand, I can’t think of anything that easily “explains” what you saw. If seen well, a dark Gyr should have remiges (the outer wing feathers) lighter than the wing linings, similar to the Turkey Vulture pattern. If seen less well, well, it’s hard to say; at least it would look more falcon-like than something else might…
Gyrfalcon is a rare and fabled bird. Among literate types it is best know from a gloss on Yeats’ The Second Coming, a poem that holds more oft-quoted lines than any single work should bear…
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer:
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold…
- alex 3-27-2007 5:49 am [add a comment]
alex, i think i saw a gryphon this morning while i was trekking across the scythian steppes with the mock turtle not more than 200 stathmos from the black sea. you think this is possible? or was it more likely a winged protoceratops that had reemerged from a wormhole created by a black hole lodged in the center of the earth?
- dave 3-27-2007 8:19 am [add a comment]
When I hear "gyrfalcon" I think World of Warcraft.
- tom moody 3-27-2007 8:28 am [add a comment]
THAT PROBABLY WASN'T A
GRYPHFALCONbirdy, SALLY!- L.M. 3-27-2007 8:33 am [add a comment]
I doubt you saw a gryphon, dave, it was almost certainly the much more common hippogryph.
- alex 3-27-2007 3:30 pm [add a comment]
story of my life. always a hippogryph, never a gryphon. who would ever put that beast on their coat of arms? well, ingres certainly had an eye for mythical creatures. and of course there are these immortal (and overpraised, if you ask me) lines from jarvis cocker:
Can you dance like a hippogriff?
Ma ma ma, ma ma ma, ma ma ma
Flyin' off from a cliff
Ma ma ma, ma ma ma, ma ma ma
Swooping down, to the ground
Ma ma ma, ma ma ma, ma ma ma
Wheel around and around and around and around
Come on, ah, come on, yeah!
Can dance you like a hippogriff? Yeah!
- dave 3-27-2007 4:42 pm [add a comment]
Before Worth1000TM there was Ingres.
- tom moody 3-27-2007 4:48 pm [add a comment]
so true. how did they even make art before photoshop?
- dave 3-27-2007 4:54 pm [add a comment]
Sorry and thanks, Alex. I got excited about the possibility and wanted to crow about it, but since I'm not sure I phrased it as a question.
- sally mckay 3-27-2007 8:00 pm [add a comment]
We call that a "possible Gyrfalcon" (if you think it might have been) or a "probable Gyrfalcon" (if you think it really was) or if the intersection of honesty and optimism is at a lower level we call it an "unidentified raptor."
Did it look like this?
- alex 3-27-2007 8:47 pm [add a comment]
I'm going to have to demote to unidentified raptor. It was black, like maybe a black gyrfalcon, but it was too big. It bugs me though, because it distinctly did NOT have finger-like feathers on the wings like a golden eagle. And the wing shape was very falconesque. sigh. Maybe we were hallucinating.
- sally mckay 3-27-2007 10:37 pm [add a comment]
Bad photos of a gyrfalcon.
- mark 3-28-2007 2:28 am [add a comment]
amazing how unassuming they look while grounded and how fierce in flight.
- dave 3-28-2007 2:42 am [add a comment]
I used to frequent Hawk Cliff (also on the north shore of Lake Erie) during fall migration. Members of the MacIlwraith Field Naturalists had a mist net set up to snag, band and track passing raptors. On the weekends they'd bring the birds over to show the crowds. What they did was slide the hawks into empty juice and tennis ball cans in order to transport them safely. They'd show up in a pickup truck with a little pile of cans with feet poking out. The birders would be immediately attempting to identify the hawks based on the size of can. The guy would hold up each can, grasping the talons in his hand, and then slide the can upwards. A scary, pissed off hawk would suddenly unfurl, with a mean eye darting around the crowd. The most common were the smallest falcons, kestrels, and they were also the most impressive because of their liquid black eyes and brilliant plummage. Also, they're feisty little buggers. I remember a kestrel sinking one of his uber-sharp claws deep into the soft bit of the guy's hand between the thumb and forefinger. Dude played it cool and didn't even wince. After a little educational tour of the bird and it's features the dude would hold it up high and let it go. Everyone spun around in synch with their binoculars watching it fly away.
- sally mckay 3-28-2007 3:45 am [add a comment]