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The world's largest falcon is a secret seabird
last update: Jun 21, 2011 08:52 PM
From a "BBC Nature" article: Scientists have discovered that the world's largest falcon, the fast, taloned Gyrfalcon, a bird living in the high Arctic, is actually a secret seabird, overwintering out at sea, spending long periods living and hunting on pack ice.
Ornithologist Kurt Burnham, who made the discovery, said "I was very surprised by this finding. These birds are not moving between land masses, but actually using the ice floes or pack ice as winter habitat for extended periods of time. Previously, all species of falcon were considered to be land-based birds."
Dr Burnham of the High Arctic Institute, Illinois US and the University of Oxford, UK, together with colleague Professor Ian Newton of Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Oxford, studied the seasonal movements of gyrfalcons (Falco rusticolus) by tagging 48 birds with radio transmitters. This allowed them to track the movements of the birds living in three areas of Greenland: Thule in the northwest, Kangerlussuaq in the west, and Scoresbysund in the east.
They found that birds living on the west coast had winter home-range sizes of between 400-6,600km square kilometres, whilst those on the east coast ranged far more widely, covering between 27,000-64,000 square kilometres.
"Others had observed gyrfalcons sitting on icebergs and over the ocean but it was always assumed they were only over the ocean for a short period to hunt and then flew back to land," explained Dr Burnham.
The research, he added, emphasises how specialised many Arctic species are, in order to survive in an extremely difficult and inhospitable environment.
Read:
BBC Nature, 20th June 2011
