*
Given the season, when cranes and geese and all the arctic nesters are on the
move I would expect a Gyrfalcon to not linger. i was a bit surprised and
totally pleased that it remained as long as it did, allowing so many humans to
enjoy it. One was reported near Tangent in mid-December a few years ago and I'm
not sure anyone saw it after the initial report. I think of them as
speciaiizing on Cackling Geese. The USFWS has an agreement with farmers to keep
geese out of the eastside of the Willamette Valley. The Fairchilds discovered
one near Inavale School on the Corvallis CBC a few years ago.
It had a white patch of feathers on the left side of its head, so it was
obvious people were seeing the same bird on subsequent sightings. It hung
around for two months maybe--there's a lot of geese in se Benton County at that
season. But it ranged widely. Someone photographed it by the barn at the old
HQs site on Finley, someone else saw it perched along 99W closer to the
airport. It seems like a week or ten days would go by between reports.
The habitat in Benton County, rich in prey, is continuous with the Linn
County area under consideration if you are a bird. Humans are obliged to go to
Corvallis or Harrisburg however to use a bridge.
Lars
On Mar 2, 2017, at 10:56 PM, Tom McNamara wrote:
Well, alright a tad anthropomorphic, but as France and Jack have
written....it was not seen by them and I too was skunked. Jack and I must've
been driving around in non-intersecting circles as we did not cross paths.
To add to what France said inre other parties: I spoke with several others
and no one had seen the bird. Based on this, unlike Jack, I Am suggesting the
bird has moved on. But it's only a suggestion and if I lived in greater
proximity I would keep trying.
And to think I was only 4 species short of matching Jeff Fleischer's
5-falcon slam of last Sat.---Kestrels were everywhere ;-)
Oh, I did see my FOS Turkey Vulture, pretty funky consolation bird....
good birding,
Tom
