Bud and tweeters -

Any experience re: the original question? I don't see that a
peregrine would have any trouble carrying a duck a ways. Ducks can
be big, but peregrines are pretty powerful. I had the amazing luck
to see a Gyr take out a green-winged teal and then carry it to an
ice-edge to eat on Cayuga Lake, NY. The duck was nothing to the Gyr.
Addmittedly, a wigeon is bigger than a teal and Peregrine smaller
than Gyr, but small ducks and shorebirds are preferred foods of
Peregrines, correct? I would think a peregrine could carry a wigeon
as far as necessary to eat it.

Jesse Ellis
Seattle

At 11:13 AM -0800 1/11/07, Bud E-mail wrote:
>Hi Tweeters,
> I'd like to compliment Kathy Wise on some really beautiful
>peregrine shots. If you haven't seen them, you might want to check
>them out. Excellent work and so serendipitous.
> This is one of our San Juan Island peregrines. She has a pretty
>good history and I'd like to share it with everyone.
> We started banding peregrine chicks in the San Juans in 1995. We
>obtained special permission at that time from the USFWS, Bird
>Banding Lab and the Washington State Department of Fish and
>Wildlife.The people there kindly granted us permission and clearly
>saw the value of this program.
> We always put two types of bands on WA nestlings (or
>eyasses) precisely for the purpose of identifying them in the field.
>One is a standard USFWS band (aluminum) and the other is a
>special 2-3 digit/letter black VID band (Visual IDentification). As
>this example so clearly illustrates, we can get really good
>information on the future movements of the falcon when someone like
>Kathy reads or photographs it.
> Ed Deal and Mark Prostor banded "upside down 67 over B" at a
>large cliff nest site in the eastern San Juans on 3 June 2001. She
>was one of three nestlings.
> As a result, this particular falcon was next reported (as an
>immature) at Clover Point, Victoria, BC, on 23 April, 2002.
> She was subsequently viewed by Bob Merrick and Jack Bettesworth
>in Oak Harbor on 26 May 2002.
> And on June 1 2003, we found her breeding at another San Juan
>nest site, about 15 miles from her natal site. We have seen her
>there every year since. Believe it or not, she actually knows our
>boat by now.
> She has produced ten eyasses during the last four breeding
>seasons (2,2,2 and 4).
> So far, over the last 12 years, our intrepid and stalwart banding
>team (Ed Deal, Martin Muller, Wendy Gibble, Mark Prostor and I) have
>banded a total of 253 eyass peregrines in the San Juans. Because of
>their VID bands, we have a pretty astonishing 25% rate of return.
>This includes sightings, re-traps and recoveries (i.e. dead birds).
>This is a remarkably high rate for raptor banding. At a typical
>mountain banding station, for example, banders are lucky to get a 1%
>rate of return.
> But I have to say it is because of people like Kathy that we have
>such exceptional results.
> So thank you for sending in these reports. And thanks to Dan and
>Tweeters too.
>
>Bud Anderson
>Falcon Research Group
>Box 248
>Bow, WA 98232
>(360) 757-1911
><mailto:bud at frg.org>bud at frg.org
>
>_______________________________________________
>Tweeters mailing list
>Tweeters at u.washington.edu
>http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters


--
Jesse Ellis, Ph. D. candidate
Neurobiology and Behavior
jme29 at cornell.edu
111 Mudd Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, 14853