Saturday, November 15, 2008

Prairie Falcon

Around noon today I took a walk around both Gabriel Dumont & then Diefenbaker Park.

It was quite chilly along the waters edge, as to be expected, with the temps hovering just under freezing, and with a 20k wind.
The highlight of my 2 hrs outside, was a nice flyover by a juvenile Prairie Falcon at the north end of Gabriel Dumont .
This is the first time I've seen one of these within the boundary of the city.
It flew directly overhead, allowing me to get 3 quick shots of it as it headed towards Diefenbaker Park, possibly to see if there were any pigeons under the bridge there.

Other stuff seen :

Hairy Woodpecker - 1
Downy Woodpecker - 2
Northern Flicker - 2
Common Redpoll - a small flock of about 22 in the wooded area of Gabriel Dumont.
White-winged Crossbill - 15 or so flying over the river towards Holiday Park.
Black-capped Chickadee - 7
Red-breasted Nuthatch - 1
Black-billed Magpie - 3
Mallard - 14
Common Merganser - 1 bird associating with some Mallards at Gabriel Dumont.
Canada Goose - 50+
Cackling Goose - 10
Ring-billed Gull - 35+

I also found tracks by least Weasel and Snowshoe Hare

Here is an animated gif I made, taken from the 3 shots I got of the Prairie Falcon - click for bigger version :

4 comments:

Shelley said...

Nick - that animated gif is pretty neat!

Nick S said...

Thanks Shelly. I wish I had a chance to have taken more shots, but it flew over me pretty quick !

2sweetnsaxy said...

That animated .gif is pretty cool! It's pretty amazing you got the consecutive shots to be able to do that.

Nick S said...

Thanks, yeah, it was a blink and you'll miss it kind of moment :-)