"Island Girl"
Addendum:
After banding the adult male, Paco, on Thursday and posting the report, Kathy rolled into camp in the afternoon with another peregrine. This time it was a beautiful adult female. This was Kathy's first ever caught from a bike and she was pretty happy. She had captured it exactly where she had fed an adult female a month before and thinks that it is the same bird. Nice connection. The bird was on an island in a river so Kathy called her "Island Girl". Whoever traps a bird gets to name it. Long tradition.
(Kathy, Mark and "Island Girl")
After examining this bird, we came to the conclusion that it was a local cassini peregrine. She was deeply in molt and had a deep black back and cap, not gray as we expect to see in tundra falcons. She also had alot of salmon breast feathers coming in and some of the heaviest wide breast barring that we have seen in South America. Her malar was very wide and the one feature that Clayton White has emphasized to us, the width of the black between the eye and the top of the auricular, was quite extensive. Overall, she just looked very different from our stereotypical tundra bird.
Wing.....352
Tail.......molting deck feathers
Weight..881 grams
Band number...RCL0091
We banded her with some of Christian's bands (handmade in Chile by Mauricio) and reluctantly released without a transmitter. We would have loved to learn more about her life but our goal is to tag northern migrants only on this trip. Plus we only have so many transmitters.
("Island Girl")
18 January 2008
Fireball and the Flame-outs:
This morning, I headed out at first light and drove south from camp. Within 45 minutes, I was looking at a peregrine perched on a dune back from the beach. It was an adult but I could not tell the sex as the dunes make everything appear larger than normal to me. Kind of odd really. Anyway, I threw for it and caught another adult male, which I named "Fireball". All I can say is that this one was full of fire. He also exhibited all of the classic tundra bird features. Brought him back to camp where Mark and I successfully tagged him with a transmitter. Kathy headed out to continue trapping.
Upon release, Fireball flew strongly over us, went inland and skyed up very high riding an updraft above the wooded ridge to the east. It was beautiful to see him flying against the blue summer Chilean sky.
Wing......322 mm
Tail........146 mm
Weight..650 grams
Band number..2206-61315
We are really eager to learn where these birds are roosting here. It is a complex area with far more adult males than females, a rarity for us, and we want to try to learn why. We are finding that it is a really important area for tundra males.
We have decided to stay here at for the rest of the trip because it is possible to both find and capture northern peregrines. The other areas we have surveyed have been extremely challenging in terms of locating birds in the forest plantations and agricultural fields.
Once again, without help from our Chilean friends, it would be difficult to succeed in this project. Christian thankfully discovered this area several years ago and it has been instrumental to catching enough birds.
Mark saw the green flash, a rare astronomical event, at sunset over the Pacific Ocean tonight.
("Fireball")
19 January 2008
Heavy fog this morning limited our abilty to trap. Mid-morning, I found one of the tagged males in the dunes. I could see his antenna shining in the sun.
Afternoon came up windy and wild. No birds seen on the beach or in the dunes.
My laptop died today. I guess it just wasn't designed for such a long and hard trip. We are using Mark's right now.
20 January, 2008
Mark did a dawn run up the beach for about 8 miles. Kathy and I paralleled him in the truck along the coastal road which runs a bit inland. We looked for birds from the dunes with a scope as he went north. Mark saw at least one peregrine, a male, but it was unresponsive. We did see two Aplomado Falcons chasing each other over the dunes. Also observed a pair of Variable (Red-backed) Hawks flying together along the hillside.
On the way back, Mark found an open area of back beach. It looked ideal for a peregrine to hunt over, so he threw randomly and, out of the blue, had yet another male come through and stoop ten times without result, except for 4 closed nooses. As Mark was waiting for the next set of stoops, the bird took wing and went up to hunt Chilean Swallows flying about 500 feet above the ground. He reports that the falcon totally dominated this quarry in the air.
We talked about how as humans, we live within two dimensions, usually confining our activities to the ground. Falcons, on the other hand, live their lives in a three dimensional open space of wind, air and clouds, with a freedom we can only partly imagine. Our job, and it is not easy, is to pursuade these aerial athletes to come down to our level for the briefest of times so we can tag them and learn more about their lives. So tomorrow, we will try yet again. If our paths coincide, another falcon will be tagged.
The wind is coming up again this afternoon. Three field days left before home.
