Hi SeEtta, Your bird appears to be an adult female anatum Peregrine. This is the expected breeding sub-species in CO, and throughout much of the lower 48. The salmon wash on the breast is suggestive of a female. Peregrines spend a lot of time sitting around. They are mostly airial hunters, so a perched bird is either digesting or just hanging out. The local birds seem to know this, and I often see Rock Pigeons nesting terrifyingly close to Peregrine and Prairie Falcon eyries. The way I see it, if the predator is in plain sight, then prey species can relax a bit. It's the Peregrine that drops out of space and nails you going 200 mph that you have to worry about.
Christian Nunes [email protected] Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2010 00:21:47 -0600 Subject: [cobirds] Peregrine Falcon near Canon City From: [email protected] To: [email protected] I found an adult Peregrine Falcon perched on a snag above the Arkansas River just east of Canon City on Tuesday. As this was across from my friend's place I was able to drive to a position less than 200 feet away and partially obscured by a tree which allowed me to watch this bird for an hour at a relatively close distance. This is the first time I have been privileged to view an adult Peregrine so close and so long. I got a lot of videotape of it using my 40 power zoom on my camcorder and have edited it into a series of short video clips that I have uploaded to my BirdsAndNature blog. Most are best viewed enlarged to fill a computer screen and at least on my 14" laptop screen the video comes through clearly. I also got some nice still photos which I am also uploading to my blog. I have used Brian Wheeler's 'Raptors of Western North America' but cannot discern which subspecies of Peregrine's it is. If someone has more experience with this please let me know which subspecies. The interesting thing, besides the great experience of watching it, was that there were many birds that are prey species for Peregrines-swallows, Mourning Doves, Rock Pigeons, Eurasian Collared-Doves, and Canada Geese (not common but per Birds of North America "it is known to have killed a small Canada Goose")--were all available nearby but though it watched intently it never attempted to capture any of them?? Pigeons flew close in front of it and a Mourning Dove flew to a fence post less than 50 feet behind it and perched there for a half hour unmolested. Could it have just eaten a large meal before I saw it?? While it watches swallows flying past it moves it's head just as we might when watching a race car go by. It also moved it's head in some interesting ways as it watched while a migrating flock of Tree Swallows joined by several resident Barn Swallows zoomed right in front of it. It was very interesting to observe. SeEtta Moss Canon City http://BirdsAndNature.blogspot.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
