Rich Hoyer's account of the same Gyrfalcon. He mentions photos in his ebird
account link, but I didn't find any.
Alan
________________________________
From: obol-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <obol-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf of
Richard Hoyer <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2021 9:48 PM
To: OBOL <obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; Lanebirds <lanebirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [obol] Lane County Gyrfalcon, Ross's Goose, Lewis's Woodpecker
Dear Birders,
Around mid-day today a bunch of good birds suddenly plopped down in front of me
and my visiting friends Marc Passmann and Patty Tersey from Tucson, who arrived
just this morning. We set out late morning with no real goal and found
ourselves wandering the back roads north of the Eugene airport. We were on
Washburn Rd west of Junction City when we saw a white goose in a huge flock of
Cackling Geese landing in a field just south of the (inaccessible) Junction
City sewage ponds. When we went to investigate the geese were right on High
Pass Rd, and the white goose was quite close. I added some photos to my eBird
list here: https://ebird.org/checklist/S97758434 I'd be interested to know what
others think about this bird, as a probable hybrid was in this area last year.
The forehead isn't as steep as in perfect Ross's Goose, and there seems to be a
hint of a black grin patch, but the bird was tiny (as small as or smaller than
the cacklers), wartiness is obvious on the base of the bill, and
the feather-bill interface seems normal for Ross's.
It was almost overwhelming when all the geese started taking off at once, but I
knew to look for a predator and before long spotted a juvenile GYRFALCON, which
gave an imrpessive chase but failed to connect with a goose. It eventually
perched on a power pole to the east of us, closer to Junction City. After a few
minutes it flew off to the southeast to attempt another goose, and disappeared.
We relocated it in tree on Pitney Ln., and then saw it fly to on the 10th power
pole south of High Pass Rd (about here: 44.215177,-123.230096). We stayed with
it for about 25 minutes, long enough for only Sally Hill to arrive and see it,
and it eventually flew off to the southwest at about 12:55 p.m. As far as I
know it wasn't relocated this afternoon. Photos on the same eBird list.
Our next stop was Rest Lawn Memorial Park, a cemetery on a hill on the east
side of Territorial Highway not far north of High Pass Rd., and from there we
spotted a LEWIS'S WOODPECKER flycatching from the tops of some distant oaks on
the butte to the east.
We also saw a ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK on McFarland Rd. just south of Finley NWR
(Benton County), and it was nice to be so close to over 500 TUNDRA SWANS at
McFadden Marsh on the refuge.
Good Birding,
Rich
---
Rich Hoyer
Eugene, Oregon
birdernaturalist@xxxxxx
Senior Leader for WINGS
http://wingsbirds.com
Ambassador for American Bird Conservancy
http://abcbirds.org
my blog: http://birdernaturalist.blogspot.com
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