Showing posts with label Falco deiroleucus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Falco deiroleucus. Show all posts

Saturday, November 21, 2009

The Gyrfalcon




The Gyrfalcon eats mostly ptarmigan, but many other prey species have been recorded
including fulmars, gulls, jaegers, ducks, geese, Rough-legged Hawk, Short-eared Owl, sparrows, buntings, and redpolls.
The female Gyrfalcon regularly stores prey during the breeding season, generally within 100 meters (328 feet) of the nest.
Little is known of food-caching outside the breeding season; in one case, a Gyrfalcon was seen retrieving a frozen ptarmigan and chipping
off pieces of meat to eat, in mid-winter in the Aleutian Islands.
Gyrfalcon is pronounced as "JER-falcon." The name probably evolved from
Old Norse, but linguists do not completely agree on the specific origin of the word.
The Gyrfalcon sometimes bathes in runoff water of still-frozen rivers.
Mostly birds, especially ptarmigan. Also consumes mammals, ranging in size from voles to hares.

Gyrfalcon



The gyrfalcon is the largest of all falcon species.
The Gyrfalcon breeds on Arctic coasts and islands of North America, Europe and Asia.
It is mainly resident, but some Gyrfalcons disperse more widely
after the breeding season, or in winter .
Its scientific name is composed of the Latin terms for a falcon, Falco, and for
someone who lives in the countryside, rusticolus.
This species is a very large falcon, about the same size as the largest buteos.
Males are 48 to 61 cm long, weigh 805 to 1350 g
and have a wingspan from 110 to 130 cm (43 to 51 in).
Females are rather bulkier and larger at 51 to 65 cm (20 to 26 in) long,
a weight of 1180 to 2100 g (2.6 to 4.6 lbs) and have a wingspan ranging from 124 to 160 cm .
In dimensions, gyrfalcons lie between
a large Peregrine Falcon and a hawk in general structure; they are unmistakably falcons with pointed wings, but are stockier, broader-winged, and longer-tailed than the Peregrine.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Falco deiroleucus


The Orange-breasted Falcon (Falco deiroleucus) is a bird of the falcon family.
It is probably closely related to and looks like a larger version of the Bat Falcon.
These two, in turn, are probably closest to the Aplomado Falcon
and constitute a rather old American lineage of Falcos.
It is found from southern Mexico to northern Argentina. It's a medium sized bird (average length 35 centimeters).
It is a bird predator, with strong talons
that enable it to catch prey in flight, and is considered by some - as the German-Brazilian ornithologist Helmut Sick - as filling the ecological niche of the Peregrine Falcon as a breeding species in Tropical America.
The Orange-breasted Falcon, however, seems to favor more heavily wooded habitats than the Peregrine, therefore the species does not seem to
be in ecological competition with Peregrine Falcons wintering in South America.
source:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/