Subject: Sibley's tundra peregrine
Date: Jan 16 10:32:23 2001
From: Jim McCoy - jfmccoy at earthlink.net


Thanks, Paul. I'm embarrassed to report that, having never seen a
perched prairie falcon, it simply didn't cross my mind to turn the
page. Facing the gyrfalcon page is the peregrine page, and I saw
a subspecies that seemed to fit well what I had seen, and text that
indicated these birds are widespread in winter. I thought of peregrine
falcon as the conservative ID, and was blissfully unaware that adult
prairie falcon is very similar. Your remarks and probability suggests
adult prairie falcon, which in fact is a *better* fit based on the
illustrations in the Sibley guide. Although the bird had a whitish
forehead, which would be inconclusive, there actually was some brown
on the crown. The moustache also seemed to be a rather light brown rather
than the very dark moustache depicted for the immature tundra peregrine.


Jim McCoy
jfmccoy at earthlink.net
Redmond, WA



-----Original Message-----
From: Paul DeBruyn [mailto:paulmdb at hotmail.com]
Sent: Monday, January 15, 2001 11:08 AM
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: Sibley's tundra peregrine


I wouldn't be in a hurry to call a peregrine "tundrias" based on the
drawings in Sibley's book. For one thing anatum is not even shown and many
of our local (and northern migrant) anatums are quite pale. Tundra
peregrines generally winter south of the U.S. although there are a few
records for B.C. and Washington in winter based on banded birds of known
natal origin. Sibley also shows juvenile peregrines with yellow feet which
is unusual. Most young peregrines have bluish grey soft parts (cere,
orbital and feet). A mid sized brown falcon with yellow feet would more
likely be an adult prairie.
I've noticed a remarkable increase in the number reports of tundrias since
the release of Sibley's book. Sub species of raptors often can't be
distinguished in the field.
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