If the last seven months of falcon watching have taught me anything, it's that I'm an amateur. I can record digital images, think, read stacks of books and write for days, but the fact is that we at MAGANRORD are new to this.

With that level of humility in mind, I want put forward the possibility that there might be at least three peregrine falcons visiting or residing on Alcatraz. Two would be juvenile. One is mature.

All pictures and video included/linked to were recorded between Monday, March 8 and Wednesday March 10. For more views of each of these three potentially distinct birds, please click on the links I provided. Sorry about the timestamps indicating the images were taken in early January 2008. As it turns out, the Canon repair facility can't fix your jammed optical assembly without resetting your camera's internal clock.

From here on out, I'll keep it pithy.

Bird one:

Note the dark brown, the shape of the helmet, heavy and unbroken breast streaking.

Click here for more pics of this bird and write back with your thoughts on this one. Is this a female?

Bird two:

Note white patches on each breast, which far from being a trick of the wind or the angle were observed on back to back days on different outings. Also, the shape of the helmet, the size of the beak in relation to the size of the body.

Bird three:

Since November, we've been observing her the most. Before today, we hadn't spotted this individual in a week. We'd figured she'd left us to participate in seasonal raptor migration. We're glad to know she's still around.

Note mature features (slate/blue plumage, very lightly marked upper breast).