This Solstice afternoon, I dropped down to the Everett waterfront to check on Whimbrels. Although I saw 5 this morning, I didn't see any this afternoon as the tide came up. But what I did see was really cool.

As I was scanning the flats for Whimbrel's, I noticed a particularly intense disturbance of Caspian Tern's out along the channel. There has been a hundred+ Caspian's around the mudflats this past week, roosting way out at the edge of the flats at the lower tides. I imagine it must be refreshing for their tootsies to be perched on nice cool soft mud instead of the tarmac, or sheet metal roofs they get for high tide roost's around here. Immature Bald Eagle's have been disturbing the Caspian's of late, but this disturbance was something else.

Just before I checked this out, I flashed on Bud Anderson's recent post about "murmurating" starlings, and other flocking birds, as being a Falcon alert, and Bud's message was right on in this case. As I focused on the Caspian's "thrashing", I spotted the source - a Peregrine Falcon.

The falcon was perched on a piling out on the flats and getting an amazing what for from those Terns.! I've never seen Caspian Tern's so riled up. As the falcon was getting severely hassled, it flew off it's perch and dove to the near bit of channel water, striking at a diving bird of some sort on the surface. The bird dove, and the falcon missed. The falcon returned to it's nearby perch, still being really bothered by the Tern's. Seemingly ignoring the Tern's, the falcon repeated the same attack from it's perch twice more.

The last strike ended with the Peregrine in the water! It was floating there, wing's outstretched like a mini Osprey, or like the recent photo's on Tweeter's of the Bald Eagle swamped in the lake after a duck foray. Whoa! In a few seconds it got back in the air. It seemingly had missed it's prey and flew towards shore and up the bluff, with about 6 Crows on it 's tail. I assumed the falcon gone.

I had resumed my Whimbrel scan for a minute when I heard the Tern commotion again. The Peregrine had killed it's prey after all, and had come back and hauled it out of the water to the nearest mud. Now doubly harassed by both Crows and Tern's, the Falcon hauled it's prey (and it looked like a sort of heavy haul) north to the nearest log raft. While previously exhibiting remarkable savoir faire in the face of it's persecutors, the Falcon finally seemed to get pissed off as it lugged it's dinner away, giving the Tern's some over the shoulder dirty looks.

What was the prey? It was pretty small, darkish, and seemed to flash pointed wing's as it dove (it was a way's out) so I'm thinking maybe a Marbled Murrelet, which I've seen on the "outside" of Jetty Island before in Summer. The Falcon was a darkish bird - a textbook example of an immature bird- according to Sibley anyway.

Whimbrel's? Floating Falcon's? I can hardly wait till tomorrow.

Jeff Gibson
Mudwatcher,
Everett wa.