Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: Gyrfalcon

There is a funny story behind this image - but I won't tell you about it ("phew" says Cathy, lol!). From a great distance, this bird of prey still looked huge and appeared to have a white front. My heart skipped a beat at the possibility that this might be a Feruginous Hawk. However, when we got closer, it turned out to be a beautiful Gyrfalcon, perched on an ugly power pole, ha. Spent the whole day SE of the city again on 13 March 2014, with friends Cathy and Terry. What a slow day it was for much of the time. Took us just over 6 hours to find the first Snowy Owl - just the tiniest, distant white speck on the ground, far across a huge field. We were beginning to wonder if maybe all the Snowies had already left to fly north, so we were happy to see this one, and a second one about four hours later, perched on a distant power pole. No photo opportunities for these owls, but it felt to good to know that there were at least these two owls still in the area. We had no luck at all finding a Short-eared Owl - very different from 7th March, when we saw 8 of them, six in flight and two on the ground. In addition to the 2 Snowies, we did see 9 Great Horned Owls, though, some on nests. Weather was beautiful with some interesting clouds for part of the day, clearing much later. We were just in time to see the last of the pink sunrise colour and light on the distant mountains - always so beautiful. Some of the fields looked pretty bare, while others were still covered in snow.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think this is a Dark Phase Gyrfalcon, seen on 22 December 2013 in low light, SE of Calgary. If anyone could confirm or correct my ID, I'd appreciate it greatly. Thanks!

Two days ago, on a last-minute decision to drive NW of Calgary, I was so lucky to come across this beautiful Gyrfalcon. I didn't notice it in time to stop closer, so I ended up taking some fully zoomed (later, heavily cropped) shots of it way down the road. I wasn't sure what it was until I got home to my bird book and Google, but then reckoned it could be a Gyrfalcon. Thanks to friend, Tony, a superb birder who puts up with my occasional bird ID questions, I now know that it is, indeed, a Gyrfalcon. A handful of times over the last few years, I have been out with various friends and someone will call out "Gyrfalcon" and I see a fast-flying "shape" flying high in the sky, but this is the first time I've really "seen" one. About 45 minutes later, I was staring into the eyes of a beautiful Great Gray Owl : ) All this, plus sunshine - made a great afternoon on 22 March 2013. "The largest falcon in the world, the Gyrfalcon breeds in arctic and subarctic regions of the northern hemisphere. It preys mostly on large birds, pursuing them in breathtakingly fast and powerful flight .... May range from nearly pure white to dark gray to black, with variable barring and streaking; most are gray." From AllAboutBirds. www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/gyrfalcon/id en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrfalcon