2/12/2024 0 Comments Chris myer peregrin falcon![]() Chris Payne sat cross-legged in front of a well-used white tally board that listed raptor species. “There, up high,” Jeff Payne, Chris’s father, said as the day’s last osprey angled southward toward Cuba. The counting team had added a half-hour to its regular day to try to spot another osprey, which would bring the total count of the birds to 1,600 for September. It was approaching 4:30 in the afternoon. And kestrels, if you take a banana peel and flap it up and down, it looks like a kestrel flapping – real loose and floppy.” “Merlins are like Energizer bunnies they just flap like crazy. “The peregrine has a big, powerful flap that comes right from the base of the wing,” Payne said. Spotters scrutinize how the birds flap their wings. “They are much larger and chunkier as opposed to the kestrel, the smallest of the three species.” “The peregrine is our largest falcon,” Payne said. By contrast, hawks have broad wings with feathers that extend like fingers from the wingtips. “For falcons, the best indicator is their wing shape – they have very pointy wings,” Payne said. Identifying these fast-flying birds is a bigger challenge, even for experienced birders. Spotting the birds is only the first step. Two buttonwood trees with crowns that poked above the scrub were “Big Bob” and “Little Bob.” A cluster of dead, leafless trees was “the Fingers.” In this flat landscape, the reference points were nearby trees and power poles. They also called out a landmark over which the bird is flying. A call of two glasses told spotters to lift their binoculars two planes up from the horizon, or roughly 30 degrees. Spotters called out the bird’s altitude in “glasses” – how many viewing planes up from the horizon the bird is flying. ![]() To meet the challenge, spotters here spoke in a cryptic code passed down from one team of hawkwatchers to the next. Most sightings were measured in seconds, a test of a birder’s eyesight and identification skills. (Fun raptor fact: Peregrines can ball up their feet into fists when they dive and literally KO a small bird out of the sky.) These crow-size birds cruise at 20-to-50 mph but can reach more than 200 miles an hour in a “stoop” – their characteristic hunting dive. Falconers prize female peregrines particularly able hunters can fetch up to $25,000 in the bird bazaars of the Middle East. Their name derives from “peregrinus,” which means “wanderer” or “foreigner” in Latin. Peregrines are the star attraction at the Florida Keys Hawkwatch. The counts help researchers monitor bird populations. Non-raptor counts were uploaded to, the website maintained by the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology. At the end of the day, daily totals for each species were uploaded to. Every hour, the counter recorded the number and kind of raptors that were seen in the previous hour. One team member acts as the official counter, the others as spotters. Seuss: Worm-eating warblers, short-billed dowitchers, lesser yellowlegs, northern parulas and yellow-billed cuckoos. A glance at its pages revealed a menagerie of birds that could have been named by Dr. They’re heading straight to Cuba,” said Lindsey Duval, of Saratoga Springs, New York, the third member of the counting team.ĭuval entered the barn swallows in a separate notebook that records non-raptor sightings. Counters don’t record an osprey until it makes its move south.Ī dozen small birds flashed by and headed over the water. Several ospreys make their permanent home in the Middle Keys. It was sometimes hard to tell migrants from residents. Spotters only counted southbound migrating birds. Okay, it’s streaming” – flying fast, a telltale sign that it’s migrating. He shifted his binoculars to slightly to the right. “Engaging guests is a crucial part of our work because increasing public interest is the best way to ensure that the raptors we observe are protected for future generations.”Ībove us a fast-moving bird with a fighter-plane profile was making a beeline south for Cuba. “Visitors are absolutely welcome at the Hawkwatch,” said Chris Payne, a native of Somerset, New Jersey, who is a member of the counting team and a lifelong birder. If a bird lands, people may use the team’s more powerful spotting scopes. Watchers keep spare pairs of high-power binoculars for visitors to use. 31, 19,067 raptors of all species had been tallied – an average of 46 birds an hour over the two-month Keys Hawkwatch. This season, a total of 3,588 peregrines were spotted, including 500 on Oct. 10, 2015, the highest daily count ever recorded anywhere in the world. Counters here logged 1,506 peregrines on Oct. Curry Hammock in the fall is one of the few places in the world where a birder can expect to see migrating peregrines. ![]() With the migrating birds come flocks of birders. “It’s 80 miles to Cuba, closer than Key West.” Capital Gazette eNewspaper Home Page Close Menu
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