Subject: Re: Diving hawk or falcon?
Date: Aug 5 15:24:13 1997
From: Michael Price - mprice at mindlink.bc.ca


Hi Tweets,

Annette writes:
>A co-worker of mine was camping near Spirit Lake in Idaho last week. He said
> he said what looked like hawks or falcons (based on their short necks and
> squarish-shaped bodies) diving from high in the sky into the lake. He said
> these birds would stay submerged for up to 12 seconds at a time. I had no
> idea what they might be? Can somebody help?

Like most, I initially assumed terns or ospreys. But a *12*-second
submergence? Count it out by mississippi's: that's a *long* submerge, at
least three or four times longer than any Cascadian tern would spend at most
below the surface, more on the order of what a diving Aythya-genus duck
might do. I've never, categorically never, seen any tern, whether Common,
Arctic, Forster's or Caspian (never seen a Black do anything but
swallow-like flycatching over the surface) spend more than 1-4 seconds
submerged, and the one time I saw an Osprey go right into the deep end, it
was back out with the fish in 3 seconds flat, and that I know 'cause I timed it.

So, either the time-sense of the observer got stretched--excitement, among
other things, will do it--and they were terns, not Ospreys, since Annette's
post implies there were a number of them there simultaneously, or there's a
disjunct population of Northern Gannets in Idaho. Or her friend's telling
her one that's even taller than that. '-)

Cheers

Michael Price The Sleep of Reason Gives Birth to Monsters
Vancouver BC Canada -Goya
mprice at mindlink.net