Readers of BirdWatching in early 2013 voted Gyrfalcon the fourth most-wanted bird in the United States and Canada. Here’s what you need to know to add it to your life list.
Description, range, and population
DESCRIPTION. Large raptor with long tail. Yellow eye ring, cere, and legs on adults. Plumage varies from white to gray to dark brown. Gray morph most common in southern Canada and northern United States. (ABA Code 2)
RANGE. Breeds in arctic regions from Alaska to Greenland, Scandinavia to Sibera. Winters in Canada and the northern United States and across a wide swath of central Eurasia.
POPULATION. Estimated world population 7,880-10,900 pairs (2005).
ALASKA: Denali National Park, Mendenhall Wetlands, Anchorage, Bristol Bay, Yukon Delta NWR, Nome, Dalton Hwy., Barrow, Gambel Island
ALBERTA: Bow River downstream of Calgary, William Hawrelak Park
BRITISH COLUMBIA: Roberts Bank, Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal, and Brunswick Point, Delta
SOUTH DAKOTA: Fort Pierre National Grassland
MINNESOTA: Duluth harbor
WISCONSIN: Chequamegon Bay
MICHIGAN: Sault St. Marie power plant
Rockjumper Birding Tours: Canadian Arctic — Northwest Passage, August 14-25, 2013
Cheeseman’s Ecology Safaris: Alaska’s Arctic: Northern Lights, Polar Bears and Arctic Wildlife, September 2-11, 2013; Alaska from North to South, June 12-July 1, 2014
Wild Planet Nature Tours: Winter Raptor Workshop, Mission Valley, Montana, December 5-9, 2013
Wings: Newfoundland: Winter Birds, January 12-18, 2014
Field Guides: Yellowstone in Winter, January 17-25, 2014
Naturalist Journeys: Washington State Winter Birding Tour, February 15-21, 2014
Birdquest: Alaska, June 2-14, 2014
Victor Emanuel Nature Tours: Grand Alaska Part I: Nome and the Pribilofs, June 9-19, 2014; Grand Alaska Part II: Anchorage, Denali Highway & Kenai Peninsula: Jun 19-27, 2014
Avocet Tours: Vancouver Day Tours
Tours to watch for
Rockjumper Birding Tours: Alaska — Denali and Kenai
Arctic Wild: Alaska Winter Adventure in Gates of the Arctic
Wilderness Birding Adventures: Arctic Refuge Solstice Base Camp; Nome, Alaska
About our poll
We wanted to know, and you told us.
Earlier this year, we published a list of 240 bird species that occur in the United States and Canada and asked readers of BirdWatching magazine to choose the 10 that they wanted to see most.
We derived our list from the authoritative ABA Checklist. We included all rare, casual, and accidental species (ABA Checklist Codes 3, 4, and 5); regularly occurring North American species that are not widespread (Codes 1 and 2); and one species that was once dangerously close to extinction but today is surviving in captivity and struggling to become naturally re-established (Code 6). We omitted most species not native to North America.
Nearly 900 of our readers participated. Their 10 most-wanted birds include three owls, a handful of endangered species, a clown-faced puffin, a blue-footed seabird that is rarely spotted in the United States, and America’s one and only condor.
We presented the 10 most-wanted birds in the August 2013 issue of BirdWatching. Our article included not only the descriptions, population info, and eBird maps above but also 10 things you didn’t know about each species.