Our tiercel has become very secretive, but when he is visible, he's having a great time.

Now to the meat of it.

She looks happy. As usual, there are more pictures of all sizes on my flickr.

Sorry for the graininess on these photos and videos. These photos were taken utilizing a ridiculous level of optical and digital zoom. I love my camera. It's not the $3,000 body and lens setup I dream of, but somehow this combination of 80x zoom and a tripod can yield somewhat intelligible images at great distances.

It's unknown what this prey item was. Several white feathers fell from the smokestack as she ate. Several of my final images of her eating show her standing on a white feather, presumably from her quarry.

Here are a few very short videos of her dining.

I guess it wouldn't be a proper MAGANRORD post without a falcon video with semi-humorous narration.

In the following video, she finishes up and departs.

I was truly struck by just how red the meal left her beak and talons.

Also, the white feathers invite a bit of curiosity. The only prey item available that yields consistently white feathers is a gull, and our gulls are probably a little too big for her. Pigeons can be lightly plumed, so that's possible, though every feather I saw was as white as snow so I'm a little bit skeptical of that possibility. Our snowy egrets haven't returned yet, so they're ruled out.

Peregrines do scavenge and dead gulls have been turning up on Alcatraz. There were two such departed on the roof of the new industries building this afternoon.

Whatever the prey was, the female filled her crop and there were leftovers:

If the female abandoned her bird without finishing it, it may have been a large bird, like a gull or it may reflect her assessment of available prey. Slim pickings will mean a thoroughly devoured corpse. Abundance means she eats her preferred parts and leaves leftovers for others to scavenge.

Who says corvids and falcons can't be friends?

Also, meet this guy:

I saw him duke it out with another WEGU in a half hour brawl over what a visitor who witnessed the madness said was just a morsel of food. The whole thing made me positively squeamish and I think it led to some rather shaky camera work as I recorded the encounter.

I'm going to post our 26 minute video in the coming days. I don't expect that anyone will watch it but I do want to make a point about the gull's way of life. It's awful. It's not all mating and gloriously forcing down huge starfish. It's a lot of senseless violence. Ounces of blood and a half hour of combat leaving both gulls exhausted seems like it isn't worth a bit of chicken, which is readily available to these gulls.

Stay tuned.

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).

We fretted too soon. And then we did it again. Details and pictures to come.

The female and her boy companion had given us absolutely regular observations for months on end. Failing to observe them for a few days seemed like a good indication that they had moved on, but it might not be so.

Yesterday, we spotted the male perching on the water tower, though he disappeared before either of us could snap a picture. It was good to know Alcatraz still had a rad new apex predator to observe, even if we were hoping for a pair.

A few of the raptor experts from the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory have very generously shared their considerable knowledge and insights with us. Based on what they've told us, the falcons may both leave or our cougar female may fly north to mate, leaving her immature ally to brave Alcatraz all on his own. It may also be possible for him to mate with her just where she is. Nesting season will tell.

If she has left, it would explain why the falcons have become far less visible of late, especially as she was always much easier to observe than he was. The vast majority of Alcatraz falcon photos in the MAGANRORD archive feature her but it's been at least a week since we've seen her hopping around in her preferred cypress tree.

But she may not be gone yet.

Today, we had more birders from GGRO visiting us and they made some curious observations. Most importantly, they observed two falcons perching on the water tower, vocalizing to each other and then engaging in aerobatic falcon flirting, in which the male and female take to the air to dive, dart and fly in tight spirals in close proximity with each other and at great speeds.

Oddly, they reported that both birds displayed juvenile plumage. This Alcatraz falcon does not.

Now we're forced to consider a set of strange scenarios. Perhaps the adult female has moved on and a juvenile has joined him. It would explain the observations of the visiting GGRO birders and it would explain why the falcons have become so much harder to observe over the last week or so.

A less demanding explanation might just be that a trick of light or an unfortunately placed shadow interfered with the ability of our visiting birders to see the female clearly. Through the unfortunate light/shadow/haze/lack of contrast, her slate blue features may have appeared brown.

At any rate, I didn't see the female today. But I did see this guy:

Brown. Very heavily marked chest. More pictures of him in all sizes are up on my flickr.

More investigation is required here. We'll post anything we find.

The ravens have been especially visible over the last couple of days as they soared all over the island. I saw them over and over again on every single outing.

Here's Lucky the WEGU, incurring more adult gull wrath with her begging.

She's still going strong.

Also, MAGANRORD is in clear danger of becoming a falcon blog. As such, you can expect some posts on our raven pair in the near future. We're interested in who they are, how they go about their lives on Alcatraz and we'll even be taking a quick look at the park's policy of attempting to oil (destroy) the ravens' eggs each season.

Oh, and we saw a few gulls harassing a pair of great blue herons near the dock.

Where are our falcons?

I would very much like to see the peregrines establish themselves permanently on Alcatraz but recent observations leave me worried that any raptor pair making a home on a small island populated seasonally by two thousand western gulls faces an arduous task; I hope that our falcon pair hasn't failed already. More on that in a moment.

There is the aforementioned tendency of the gulls to take to the sky in alarm whenever the falcons soar over their roosts. In one such instance, I saw several gulls actually attacking one of the falcons in midair.

There is also a certain reckless aggression practiced by the pair and especially by the male. The ravens are certainly enemies of the gulls but they trespass on the gulls very selectively and very, very carefully. The ravens may harm the gulls by occasionally taking their eggs and young but they are deft enough to avoid being mobbed in large groups.

On the other hand, the male falcon thought that it might be wise to nearly take the head off the female raven as she was soaring by. Far from doing anything to provoke him, she seemed not to notice him until she suddenly dove to evade the attack.

On that same occasion (Monday, March 1st 3:45-4:45pm) I saw the female falcon on the railing of the water tower, stationary, apparently watching the male's antics. He would fly up, join her on her perch, hop around and then take to the sky for a few more laps of ill advised adventure.

As he aggressively darted in, around and through a cloud of angry gulls over the recreation yard and the new industries building on the west side of the island, the female only watched his maneuvers. After one energetic run, he failed to rejoin her. The gulls quieted down and their numbers in the air fell to just a few.

Ten minutes later, I spotted a dead bird on the roof of the new industries building. I reported it to our wildlife biologist and I'm at least 95% sure that it's a western gull but even with binoculars it's difficult to be sure. Tomorrow, I'll have the right hardware to make a final determination. Stay tuned.

Yesterday, in all of my outings, I saw only the female and only for a small part of the day. Today, we saw neither falcon. It's the first time in many weeks that I haven't seen either bird. They are so habit driven and preferential to the same few haunts (the water tower, the power plant, a couple of cypress trees) that it's worrisome not to have made a single sighting on any of our outings.

I know with only one falcon-free day that it's far too early to fret, but the recent conflicts with the gulls and the ravens have left me with the sad expectation that these birds won't succeed in establishing themselves. The gulls have become more numerous since the falcons arrived in November and they have become more assertive. I wouldn't be shocked if one of the falcons fell in a bloody adventure, or if they decided Alcatraz and its thousands of large gulls wasn't friendly to their reproductive prospects.

Here's to pleasant surprises of all kinds.

I got my camera back today. Expect visual media. Uh, lots.

I checked in on Lucky the WEGU today, and (s)he is alive and well, chasing adult gulls and begging for food, as is his/her pattern.

We observed a group of four crows on the island today, marauding around, soaring and executing a number of funny diving maneuvers. BourbonHawk can tell a crow from a raven at great distances and if she can't see the birds, she can tell from their calls. I, on the other hand, have some work to do.

That's it for today.

More soon.

As the pair soared high over the recreation yard today, they alarmed the gulls roosting below and soon the sky was full of angry birds. The sound of their collective threat and unease vocalizations was deafening.

After perhaps fifteen minutes of falcon soaring and gull ambivalence, one falcon disappeared from view and the other descended, hovering in strong winds perhaps 40 feet above me.

Then I made our very first observation of unsolicited mobbing behavior by the gulls towards the falcons. With no clear provocation, three gulls began to pursue and attack the falcon. One managed to bite the falcon's tail several times and each time the falcon issued a vocalization that I would describe as halfway between a screech and a groan.

The falcon then evaded its three pursuers and attacked a soaring gull. Contact was made but the peregrine failed to grab or otherwise harm its target. WEGUs seem a little big for peregrine food so its possible that the attack was an expression of anger at the mob attack.

It gives us cause to wonder. In prior posts, we've speculated and even boldly predicted that the gulls would eventually drive the falcons away. We've seen the gulls handle many a red tailed hawk in this manner and when the gulls mob a raptor during nesting season, they are relentless. As nesting season comes near, will the gulls continue to lose patience with the pair of peregrines that would take Alcatraz as their own?

We'll keep you apprised.

On another note, the common raven pair was again spotted moving nesting materials to its preferred tree on the north side. The presence of the falcons there may not be enough to change their plans after all.

That's it for today.

Some very fine folks from the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory visited the island on Thursday, investigating reports of the peregrine falcon pair in our midst.

Their excursion began fruitfully enough, as they spotted the female (which I had wrongly taken to be the male) perched in her familiar cypress tree just across from the main entrance to the cellhouse basement. The male, however, was nowhere to be found.

BourbonHawk and I were able to shirk customer service duties for a bit to show the visiting birders each of the island's falcon haunts. Sadly, after forcing our guests to hike high and low around the entire island, dragging their heavy birding equipment behind them, the male failed to appear. Then, as we returned to the female falcon's perch, the male landed on the water tower, issuing forth vocalizations that our visiting birders called wailing.

The female watched the male without apparent interest.

After getting a look at the male, the experts concluded that it is a juvenile, perhaps a peale's falcon, putting Alcatraz well outside its normal breeding range. The female is a typical anatum.

Yes, you read that correctly. She's a cradle robbing cougar with a taste for the exotic! It's unknown whether or not the male will be able to breed with her, or whether the extent of their cooperation is limited to hunting and defense against the island's resident gulls and ravens.

As the clock turned to four, it was time for us to pack up and leave Alcatraz for the day. On the way down the hill, we noticed that the female had joined the male on the water tower. BourbonHawk took a picture:

Fifteen minutes later, as we boarded the boat, a small mob of gulls chased the falcon pair over the boat's boarding ramp. The female had a recently dispatched pigeon in tow. I'm not envying the island's pigeons, pigeon guillemots and starlings right now.

Here's a shot from the MAGANRORD archives.

'WEGU' is bird nerd speak for western gull.

Here's your Alactraz birding update:

One morning last week, ol' Sweep Commander and I approached Alcatraz's amazing National Park Service site supervisor, asking for her blessing in exploring some of the closed areas on the west side of the island. Initially we wanted only to scope out an area near the New Industries Building where a former Alcatraz wildlife biologist said that Heermann's gulls could sometimes be seen by the dozen. The search for exotic gulls proved fruitless, as there was nary an orange-beaked little gull to be found. There were no gulls in the area at all, for that matter.

However, we stumbled upon far too much radness to be disappointed. I saw my first black oystercatcher, we found numerous desiccated corpses from the 2008 cormorant colony (post coming soon), and MOST AWESOMELY:

We found the falcon with a fresh kill!

We're still working on figuring out what exactly it is that she killed, but this was incredibly exciting to both of us as we had yet to see her feeding. Even better, we've got it on video!

That's some National Geographic stuff right there.