Dumb Luck

Captures Mystery Bird

on Film

I don’t know why I took the photograph shown as Figure 1. One of the western crows
can be seen perched on the lowest branch of the foreground tree, but I doubt I was
focusing on it. (My normal lens was on the camera; that’s why I show such a large
area.) It’s doubtful I was trying to capture the color of the setting sun against the
headland; the sky looks washed out. Jehoshaphat, you say, isn’t it obvious that I was
trying to photograph that huge bird seemingly perched just above the fence? Maybe,
but I don’t even recall seeing that bird. Had I seen it, why would I have turned from it
(frame 8) and photographed two crows on the beach (frame 9). Had I seen it, I would
have taken every possible exposure, climbed the rock to look for evidence of a kill,
then rushed the film directly to the lab. Then again, if I didn’t see it, why did I turn

Figure 1
back and take the photograph shown as Figure 2 (frame 10)?

I know of two possible explanations for this seeming blank-out -- pneumonia, the latter

Figure 2

stages of which I was just about shaking off when these pictures were taken (early
September), or early-onset senility.

The scene is the top of the rocky headland at the west end of White Beach in
Manchester-by-the-Sea. I photographed Figure 1 just as the bird appeared to be
landing in the top of a small evergreen. That evergreen is only about twelve feet high,
and its top might support the weight of a crow, but certainly not a bird this large. It’s
possible that the bird was attacking something in the treetop. Those shapes on the
hillside to the left of the fence (Figures 1 and 3), which may look like birds escaping
downhill, are simply leaves on a foreground shrub.

Some of the western crows (See my vignette, “Flocks of Crows -- a Journal”) were in
the vicinity. Figure 1 shows one of them perched in the tree at the end of the feeding
wall. Two others were down on the beach not far from where I was standing. I
should think all three crows would have been able to see the large bird atop the
headland, yet I recall none of them showing any excitement. The two on the beach
were definitely unperturbed.
In Figure 2 the large bird has landed on the far side of the fence. Again, had I seen that
bird, surely I would have climbed the promontory to get a closer view of it or to look
for signs of a kill. My first awareness of the bird was when I got my pictures from the
laboratory on 17 September 2003. I wasted no time climbing the promontory to check
for signs of a kill (none) and to measure the height of that fence (six feet from ground
to top horizontal bar). That’s half an inch in Figure 3, and the bird’s wingspread is half
that again. The evergreen, which appears to be directly beneath the bird, was the
same distance from my camera as the left-hand corner of the fence. That is to say, the
bird is no closer to the camera than the fence corner. Its wingspread appears to be
eight to nine feet, which rules out all but turkey vulture or bald eagle. That the crows
showed no excitement would suggest turkey vulture, but that species has a maximum
wingspread of six feet. The only bird native to this area whose wingspread
approaches that shown in Figures 1 and 3 is the bald eagle.

Figure 3 is an enlarged section of Figure 1. Figure 4 is an enlarged section of Figure 2,

where the bird had dropped to the ground.

I have a friend who lives on this hill. When I described this incident and hazarded the
guess that the bird was a bald eagle, my friend said that one of her neighbors had
recently seen a bald eagle outside her home.

Figure 3

Figure 4
Interactions between
a Peregrine Falcon
and a Flock of Crows
(17 August 2003) I had just fed the eastern crows at the Private Path feeding tree (See
my vignette, “Flocks of Crows -- a Journal”). While the crows were still in the tree, five
or six mourning doves flew into the treetop. From somewhere in the salt marsh
beyond the tree, a peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) flashed into view and attacked
the doves. This spooked the crows into flight, which apparently caused the falcon to
miss its kill, because it turned sharply and
made a pass at the crows. I expected to
see a crow injured or killed, but the
peregrine broke off its attack and
perched in the Private Path tree for some
thirty minutes. During all this time, four
of the crows perched in the same tree.
They didn’t seem concerned with
watching the falcon. I believe they were
just waiting for me to feed them again.
One crow was perched on a branch just
above the falcon, with no conflict or
aggression apparent. For most of this
time, the crows were quiet. Peregrines
and crows may co-exist because they’re
about the same size, and the peregrines
are usually outnumbered.

The falcon was slate gray above, pale to

white below, with a barred breast, so I concluded that it was a male. The bird was
perched in a fairly dark location, well shaded from the sun. I moved as close as I
dared, fifty to sixty feet, and photographed it using my zoom lens. The prints look fairly
sharp, but my scanner just doesn’t resolve the images well enough. Using Paint Shop
Pro 7, I enhanced the scans to the best of my ability, but the focus remains soft. This
lens has always given me trouble.

Now and then the falcon did pursue a crow, but I think it was done in play, for surely a
peregrine could catch a crow over a distance of fifty to a hundred feet. Each crow
having survived the chase, several crows would gang up and chase the falcon, but not
angrily, as they do with red-tailed hawks. I sensed that the crows and falcon were
simply playing. Again, I apologize for my lousy photography.
Peregrine falcons (a.k.a . “duck hawks”) are known for swift flight and dramatic
stoops, which make them the favorite among falconers. They’re among the most
beautiful of raptors, and are found worldwide except in Antarctica. In my youth,
peregrines were widely believed to be capable of 200-mile-per-hour diving speeds, but
the technology needed to prove or disprove this was not available. The subject has
been controversial, with various sources rating peregrine diving speeds from 100 to
250 miles per hour. More recently, the 200+ figure has been well validated. Trained
peregrines have been filmed flying with skydivers, and speeds over 200 miles per hour
were recorded. American researchers have recently (2003) been using lead weights
dropped from high flying aircraft and pursued by trained peregrines. One bird's top
diving speed has been clocked at 389 kilometers per hour (240 miles per hour). Two
Ohio Division of Wildlife volunteers, using a properly calibrated radar gun, recently
clocked a stooping peregrine at 261 miles per hour.

This is not to say that peregrines always

plummet out of the sky at maximum
speed. On the contrary, they control their
attack speeds by opening or closing their
wings to vary drag. In one study using
tiny accelerometers attached to the birds,
forces in excess of 25 Gs were recorded
during the falcons’ aerial maneuvers.

All the foregoing figures relate to diving

speeds. In level flight peregrines aren’t
particularly fast. For example, they can
be outflown by pheasants and racing
pigeons, the latter being capable of 100
miles per hour in level flight.

During both World Wars, peregrines were slaughtered

because they threatened carrier pigeons used by the
military. Inadvertent but even more deadly was the
widespread use of pesticides, which brought
peregrine falcons close to extinction. The peregrine
falcon recovery program has been the most dramatic
and successful of all national efforts to help
endangered species. People the nation over,
including more than half of the state wildlife agencies,
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and important
private organizations such as the Peregrine Fund,
have made important contributions to this success.
In my area peregrines are rare migrants, usually found along the coast, so I consider
myself fortunate to have seen two in recent years. The other one was sighted far
inland, in Burlington MA, in the crowded office park adjoining Burlington Mall. I saw it
outside the Lahey Clinic, perched on a dead branch of a large tree at 11:15 AM on 15
January 2002. It was being harassed by a lone crow. My binoculars and bird guide
were half a mile away in my car, so I couldn't make a positive identification. When I
went inside, I told the Cardiac Rehabilitation nurses about the raptor. They said it had
definitely been identified as a peregrine falcon, and had been seen many times. The
nurses think the falcon preys on the abundant pigeons in the office park. When I left
Lahey at 12:45 that day, the falcon was still there, sans crow. I recalled the peregrine
looking quite a bit larger than the crow, so I would guess that it was a female. I’m told
that this falcon was resident in Burlington Mall through the winter of 2001-2002. The
supply of pigeons must have been good.

[An aside] On Easter Sunday of 2002, my son and daughter-in-law were standing with
me in the parking lot of Burlington (MA) Mall. We had just finished lunch, and were
preparing to part, when a raptor appeared high overhead, then went into a shallow
dive and accelerated to a very high speed. The wind at ground level was against the
bird, but at altitude the bird must have had a favoring wind to reach such speeds. I'll
swear it approached one hundred miles per hour. On the strength of this speed, we
immediately said peregrine falcon, but I thought the wings too broad, and took my bird
guide from the car. My son agreed that the wings had looked nothing like a
peregrine's, more like a red-tailed or a red-shouldered hawk. The hawk returned from
wherever it had sped off to, and perched on one of the high light towers near the
highway. (The last photo shown here
doesn’t relate to the bird seen by me and
my children. I close with it simply
because it’s such a marvelous shot.)

Photo Courtesy of W orking for W ildlife

http://oddsbodkins.posterous.com/