As soon as you mentioned the bird flying into a tree, I thought it sounded
like an accipiter. Based on description of size, sounds like a Cooper's
Hawk. The physical description, to me, fits Cooper's Hawk quite well.

Kelly McAllister
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
Olympia, Washington
Reply to: mcallisters4 at comcast.net


----- Original Message -----
From: "Josh Hayes" <josh at blarg.net>
To: <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2007 10:06 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] peregrine (?) near REI central Sunday


>I was picking up a package for my wife, and when I came out of the back
> entrance, onto Thomas Street, I caught a glimpse of a non-crow large bird
> zipping into a nearby tree. I went to check (of course, without my
> binocs),
> and spotted a medium-sized falcon, irritated with me for blowing its
> cover.
>
> It buzzed across a parking lot and into a different tree, where I was able
> to get a good look at it -- I couldn't make out any facial markings at
> all,
> but there was distinct horizontal fine barring across the breast, shading
> from buffy near the throat to gray farther posterior. The tail was
> distinctly horizontally barred.
>
> It was still ticked off at me, and after glaring for a minute and doing
> some
> head-bobs, flew off with its prey in hand -- err, talon -- I think it was
> a
> starling, but didn't get a clean look.
>
> I'm not at all sure of the ID, but process of elimination leads me to
> peregrine: the breast markings and size rule out merlin, so what else
> could
> it be? No way it's a gyrfalcon (and too small anyway). But the lack of
> facial markings makes me wonder; the head seemed to be quite featureless,
> just a generalized pale gray. Size modestly bigger than a crow, but
> considerably more chunky.
>
> Is there a well-known peregrine hanging out in the Cascade neighborhood?
> Or
> did I just get lucky? (or, since I didn't have my binocs or camera,
> unlucky?)
>
> -Josh
>
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