What is a gyrfalcon best known for?
Basic Description. The largest falcon in the world, the ghostly Gyrfalcon is a fierce predator in the High Arctic, where it chases down ptarmigans in flight or plummets from the sky at breathtaking speeds to strike prey to the ground.
What is the gyrfalcon habitat?
Gyrfalcons breed on arctic tundra. When they come south for winter, they look for similar habitat: open fields, coastlines, dunes, prairie, and shrubsteppe.
What is the rarest falcon in the world?
The gray falcon
The gray falcon is the rarest species and is listed as a vulnerable species. Other falcon species like the peregrine falcon have been considered endangered but brought back with conservation efforts.
What eats a gyrfalcon in the tundra?
The only natural predators of gyrfalcons are golden eagles, and even they rarely engage with these formidable falcons. Gyrfalcons have been recorded as aggressively harassing animals that come near their nests, although common ravens are the only predators known to successfully pick off gyrfalcon eggs and hatchlings.
What are the adaptations of the gyrfalcon?
Being well adapted to cold weather, the gyrfalcon has thick plumage and spotted white feathers for blending into the icy background. A recent study from the University of Oxford has uncovered a very unique trait which this species possesses.
How does a gyrfalcon hunt?
Gyrfalcons often hunt using a fast, low flight to chase their prey. Just before catching the prey, these falcons typically fly up and then dive straight down onto their prey. Prey can be taken in the air, on the ground, or occasionally even from water.
How fast can a gyrfalcon fly?
50-68 mph
The gyrfalcon is the world’s fastest bird in level flight with an average speed of 50-68 mph (80-109 kph).
What are the adaptations of a gyrfalcon?
How do you pronounce gyrfalcon?
The “y” is short (like “myth”) and the “r” is well…still an “r”. Together they sound like “jer,” as in gerbil. Thus, the correct way to say the name of this bird is jer-falcon.
What is the behavior of a gyrfalcon?
Behavior. Gyrfalcons usually spend the whole year alone or in pairs, and they appear to mate for life. The male performs spectacular aerial displays with dives and rolls. Around the pair’s cliffside nest they defend a territory nearly a mile wide, usually spaced between 3 and 60 miles from the nearest pair.
What is a gyrfalcon’s habitat?
The Gyrfalcon breeds in arctic and alpine tundra in northern Canada and Alaska, in areas with abundant ptarmigan or near colonies of nesting seabirds or waterfowl. Habitats include rocky seacoasts, offshore islands, barren lands with rocky outcrops, river bluffs, lake bluffs, and mountainous terrain up to more than 5,000 feet in elevation.
What do gyrfalcons eat in the Arctic?
More than ever, arctic species need our help and support. Gyrfalcons, like other falcons, eat mainly other birds. They prefer to hunt ground birds such as ptarmigan and grouse but also hunt seabirds and waterfowl, as well as land mammals such as ground squirrels, lemmings, voles, hares, rabbits, and marmots.
What is the gyrfalcon plan?
The participants developed a plan for research and conservation of these species. The Gyrfalcon thrives in some of the harshest climates on Earth. This denizen of the mountains and high arctic tundra is a circumpolar species, found throughout the region of the North Pole.