Daniel,

"Hi!" to you too!

Enjoyed your good tweeters message.

Re the question of the sex of Gyrs in Washington, we (Conner Museum) have
four Gyrs from Washington, and all are females. So the total sample is now
6, and all are females. It would be interesting to learn what Dennis
Paulson has at Slater Museum (Univ. of Puget Sound). Dennis?

Ours are all from the eastern part of the state: (1) ad female from Stevens
Co., 1948, has a back as dark as Sibley's Dark adult, but breast is nowhere
near as dark as his; (2) ad female from Lincoln Co., 1960, darker and
browner than Gray adult in Sibley, but not as dark as our Stevens Co.
spec.; (3) ad female [a mount] from Douglas Co., 1958, between the above
two in color, (4) juv female from Lincoln Co., 1960, very similar to Gray
juvenile in Sibley (which looks very brown).

We also have a couple Gray adults that were raised by falconers that are
much lighter than the those described above, though not quite as gray as
Sibley's Gray adult. When I was crossing the Waterville Plateau (Douglas
Co.) on US Hwy 2 on Jan 12 I saw a Gray phase Gyr that was very similar to
Sibley's Gray ad.

I don't know if sex can be told in the field. Some others on tweeters may
know. Jon Anderson? Jack Bowling?


Dick Johnson, Curator
Conner Museum
Washington State University
Pullman, WA 99164-4236
johnsonre at wsu.edu