I was out working sparrows and I heard several RBGUs screaming up at altitude. I glanced up and saw the silhouette of a large falcon soaring above me. Now I was excited just at scoring Pere a second time as that has proven to be a difficult bird to get here. As soon as I put my bins on the bird I noticed the dark axillaries and didn't believe what I was seeing. I watched it do a full circle of soaring and the darkness didn't disappear as the birds angle from the sun changed. At this point I scrabbled back to my car about 15 ft away to grab my camera. I got it setup, zoomed it up and squeezed off three photos of the bird with the first one being the best by far (above). I took a break from photographing it to try to garner more fieldmarks through my bins but the bird was soaring very close to the sun by this point and I couldn't see anything. I tried setting up my scope to try to pull more detail but by the time I set it up the bird had drifted NNE and was gone behind a cottonwood.
Just to illustrate how ridiculous this bird is and how incredibly unexpected in this airspace, I'm going to give you the number of times I've recorded the other raptor species at my place (Out of the 209 checklists I've submitted to eBird):
TUVU - 5 observations OSPR - 2 observations BAEA - 2 observations SSHA - 7 observations COHA - 16 observations RSHA - 1 observation RTHA - 16 observations AMKE - 2 observations MERL - 1 observation PEFA - 1 observation
A few notable omissions include RLHA, BWHA, and NOHA which I've never recorded from the yard before... Now my work schedule doesn't lend itself to mid-day raptor watching so my effort is actually biased against locating raptors that occur even regularly (thus the missing BWHA...).
As far as I can tell this is a first county record of Prairie Falcon for DuPage County and one of only a handful of spring records for northern IL ever (the linked site is an unofficial database of records)!
Hoping that some of my buds up in WI catch up with this guy as this species is still only hypothetical on Wisconsin's state list.
It's sightings like this that keep me going out time and time again, because you never know what you will be rewarded with!
Oh yeah, and I also added Fox Sparrow to the year list just prior to the PRFA.
I actually thought that good ole BRSP would have beaten me to the punch on recording this for the first time among yardbirds. But since I had to add in a row for PRFA, either he overlooked it, or I snagged the inaugural falco mexicanus!
ReplyDeleteWell, my friends, it would appear the bird of the year has already happened and we're not even 2/3 of the way through March (who woulddathunkit?). Insane score of epic proportions SEFI- that is still a state bird for almost all the state listers I know in MI! Good thing you got the pic though, as none of us would have believed you.
ReplyDeleteSee for me, this competition is all about the rarities rather then the raw totals (cause Kaplan is going to just win again what with having a Great Lakes coastal marsh for a backyard. Which by my logic, so took 2nd place last year behind the Slag-pile.
ReplyDeleteSo yes- Fitzy has taken the lead, but damn Caleb, you sure do throw in the towel early. I look at it like, it's just March, so many more months to get a real stonker!
Ps. i do agree with Putty on one point, had a photo not been gotten, well......
Interestingly, a Prairie Falcon was reported from a location about 2 miles south of The Wastelands two winters ago. I followed up on the sighting and was never able to confirm that a PRFA was present but...
ReplyDeleteSean's MEGA obs gives me even that much more hope for The Wastelands. Who knows, considering our proximity to each other, his bird may have passed over the house while I was changing a nasty morning dipe...
My man, that's pretty groovy. Nice way to welcome back spring.
ReplyDeleteWay to set the high bar man. We better get off our asses.
ReplyDeleteand what's this "pending BRC" nonsense? I say the authority rests right here.
Dave Shoch said...
ReplyDeleteand what's this "pending BRC" nonsense? I say the authority rests right here.
THAT'S M'BOY!!!
Well played Fitz. Now I have to find a fucking Zone-tailed Hawk or Connecticut Warbler to have any chance in hell of topping your bird. Time to freak out the neighbors by sitting on my roof with a scope 24-7.
ReplyDeleteThat's the spirit Bwewwew's.
ReplyDeleteI guess I should could say "Happy (and LUCKY) St. Patty's Day" to you, Fitz. It takes a lucky day to get a lucky bird. I thought I was doing pretty good to find a Prairie Falcon for my Butler Co., NE (eastern) list over Christmas, but in Chicagoland?!! Sheesh.
ReplyDeleteI'd be happy with a Common Buzzard over my garden, and they're an increasing resident species now found within a few kilometres of my house...
ReplyDeleteHarry speaks! Dude are you still on board with the yardbirding?
ReplyDeleteAfraid not, Sean...just not been scoring in the garden at all. I did suggest to Caleb, if you are all interested, that I may make the odd post musing about some aspect of local birding or other here, not limited to what I see in my crappy garden...
ReplyDelete