This morning as I arrived at Stewart Park by bike along the Cayuga Waterfront Trail, I happened upon Jody Enck getting his scope out of his car near the Swan Pond. We of course discussed the interesting birds we had seen recently, including gulls. At the time there were a couple hundred gulls resting in the shallow water behind the mud bar near the east end of the park. Jody had just come from there checking them out.
As we talked I noticed an odd behavior by some of the gulls. There was a small cloud of them - about 20 I’d guess - flying around in a rather spherical pattern a bit offshore partway to East Shore Park and gradually moving north. A binocular view revealed that one of the birds who seemed to be in the lead was generally gray-brown like a juvenile Herring Gull, but smaller than the gulls. Jody aimed his scope while I quickly got my scope out of my pannier and set it up. I was hoping for a jaeger, but I couldn’t make the field marks fit. It seems rude and ungrateful to be disappointed in seeing a Peregrine Falcon, but such was the case, and I eventually made out the distinctive facial pattern in addition to the plain long square tail and the plain long pointed flexible wings. For a couple minutes as we watched, the falcon rose and dived and while being harassed by Herring Gulls. The gulls appeared to be all the same size, and included at least one gray-brown young Herring Gull. No Great Black-backed Gulls bothered to join in (at least I never saw any near the Peregrine), and no Ring-billed Gulls took the risk (that’s a species that more than once I’ve seen eaten by a Peregrine). I saw this Peregrine swerve toward a gull once, and I saw an adult Herring Gull with pink feet lowered try to strike the Peregrine once, but there did not seem to be any really close calls while I scoped them. I don’t know who started the dogfight, but it was clear that the gulls were not simply flushing in fear; they did not want the falcon around, and collectively they made their point. Eventually the Peregrine flew north alone into the headwind. It seemed to me that a lot of energy was spent in flight, for which the falcon gained nothing beyond the knowledge that those gulls were aware and healthy and agile and intolerant. Gulls fly around a lot anyway, and the gulls here are pretty well fed on Cornell’s food scraps, I suppose, but I’ve never seen them chase a Peregrine before. Instead I’ve seen a Peregrine a couple of times eating atop a log in the water or while standing on the ice while gulls kept their distance, or many times a Peregrine has simply perched in a treetop near the lakeshore. Maybe this falcon was more interested in migrating. Maybe it was more intimidated than most. It looked like it was a young bird, streaky below. I hope it gets a meal somewhere along its way. - - Dave Nutter -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
