2nd hand *Possible* Gyrfalcon, Wayne Co., 21 Feb 08

[Caleb Putnam]

Birders-

Russ Schipper (rschipper at core.com)
of Kalamazoo sent me a report of a bird he is fairly certain was a dark-morph Gyrfalcon from the runways of Detroit Metro Airport on 21 Feb 08.  He saw it from a taxiing Continental Airlines 737 (from TX) that had just landed.  He is not sure exactly where at the airport he was, but his aircraft was headed back to the terminal at the time.  With Russ's permission, I am including his description of the bird below.  I have no idea what type of access there is to the airport grounds nor security concerns, but thought that some of you might be interested in following up this sighting.

I asked Russ if it could have been a dark morph Buteo and he said certainly not.  The following are excerpts of Russ's description I received: "The bird was recognizable as a raptor by its shape and
upright posture. It appeared to be a large and dark raptor. ... I judged it to be a Red-tailed Hawk sized
bird."

"The bird was facing me, so my view included almost the
entire front, excepting the lower belly, which was covered by grass. I could
also see much of a wing and the side of the face and nape, when the bird turned
its head. I could not see the tail or the back. Overall the bird was dark. The
head was virtually all dark (I thought the color appeared dark brown), with
some indistinctly noted light area on the throat. No vertical or other facial
markings were seen. Other than it did not appear to be prominent, I did not
note the beak itself but the cere was distinctly bright yellow. The nape was
uniformly dark, again appearing dark brown, with no contrast with the face. The
portion of the wings I could see were the same color as the head and nape,
again with no markings noted. The entire front, chest and upper belly, appeared
to be dirty white, with very bold dark vertical markings. The markings appeared
to be quite uniformly distributed from top to bottom and side to side. The
ratio of dark to light on the front seemed to be about 75% dark and 25% light.
The legs or feet were not seen."



"The bird was seen from a plane while taxiing toward the
terminal at speed I guessed was about 30 mph. The bird was viewed for about 5-7
seconds. It was perched on the ground though I could not tell if it had
captured prey. It turned its head once giving me a clear view of the side of
the head and much of the nape."


Good Birding, 
Caleb

Caleb G Putnam 
Grand Rapids, MI
larus10 at hotmail.com
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