[mou] Gyrfalcon at Richfield, MN

[Alt, Mark]

On Thursday, April 20, at 9:35 AM, I was sitting at my desk at Corporate
Headquarters at Best Buy, (address is 7601 Penn Ave, S., Richfield, MN).
I noticed what appeared to be a large Falcon flying in level flight from
between two buildings. The bird passed by me and proceeded over to the
intersection of Hwy 494 and Penn Ave, South. Two crows flew up to engage
it; the bird turned and flew back towards us. and was about 50 feet away
at its closest point. I realized that the bird was not strongly backlit,
it was uniformly dark grey, both dorsally and ventrally. This bird was
slightly longer and appeared to be more than twice the size (in mass) of
the two crows chasing it, which were within 10 feet of the bird so the
disparity in size was quite evident. The wings were large, thick at the
base and tapered to the wingtip; the wing beats were not "whippy" like I
am used to seeing in Peregrine's when they are accelerating. These wing
beats were slower, deeper, appearing to use more of the whole wing in
action, and gave the appearance of power. As it flew by overhead and
disappeared to the northeast, it was clearly pulling away from the two
crows in pursuit, I estimate its airspeed to have been twice that of the
crows, which were flying at probably 25 - 40 MPH, so the Falcon was
doing about 50-80 mph in level flight. The crows gave up pursuit after
about 10 seconds and were seen flying back to where they had first
engaged the falcon. There are many Rock Pigeons and Mallards in and
around the buildings on campus, and Red-Tailed Hawks and Peregrine
Falcons hunt actively in the area on a daily basis. This was a real
treat, pretty good yard bird for work!

Mark Alt
Brooklyn Center, MN
Hennepin County