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Picture Pages: Prairie Falcon The Howland
Picture Pages: Prairie FalconPage by Royce
Last update: $Date: 2004/02/09 02:37:32 $ (UTC)
The Prairie Falcon (Falco mexicanus) is a medium-sized Falcon found in the western part of North America, extending no further north than roughly our part of Alberta during the summer months, and extending to the south to western part of Mexico (hence the name). In coloration, this is a fairly brown Falcon, one of the least visually distinct of the family. Some of the best cues to look for are the pale supercilium (eyebrow), the dark handle-bar mustaches, and pale chest feathers with dark spots.
Prairie Falcons are not terribly common in Calgary, but we are beginning to take note of them as we make an increasing effort to differentiate the raptors we see. The birds most likely to be mixed up with the Prairie Falcon are the Merlin (much smaller, more colorful, with stronger tail bars) and the Peregrine Falcon (similar in size but much more rarely seen in our normal travels outside of downtown Calgary, also more colorful, with a heavier mustache).
Resources where you can find out more:
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Here, a Prairie Falcon is enjoying a well-deserved snack. I took this photo the morning of Saturday, January 24, 2004. The location was at the "duck pond", a favorite spot near a client's office in Englewood, Colorado (on the southern outskirts of Denver). This photo begins the second chapter of a story that begins on the Northern Harrier page. There, you will find out why the snack was well-deserved! This photo was taken with a digiscoping setup. Detail is not great since I was shooting from a distance of about 145 meters in strong light. (Likely I should have dropped the exposure down a bit.) I was standing in the same spot I had been when the Prairie Falcon landed on its fence post to chow down, and I didn't want to move until the meal was finished, lest I interrupt the raptor's dining experience. The photo was retouched somewhat in Photoshop Elements (mainly color balancing) and ThumbsPlus (contrast and saturation boost, and unsharp mask gaussian).
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Here, the Prairie Falcon introduced above cleans up following its meal. There's nothing like a nice, polished beak after a good mouse. This photo was taken with a digiscoping setup. Distance is still about 145m, with retouching as above. I had zoomed in a bit more for this shot, and detail is a little better (despite the usual tendency of my current setup to lose image sharpness at higher camera focal lengths). Exposure is also a little better although I had not adjusted the camera exposure mode at all.
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At this point, the above Prairie Falcon basically just starts looking around, seeing what's what. The clean up operation shown in the previous photo clearly didn't extend to claws. This photo was taken with a digiscoping setup. Distance is still about 145m, with retouching as above.
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Here we have a classic pose from the Prairie Falcon above. The annoying Northern Harrier is long gone, digestion is in process, and all is right with the world for the time being. This photo was taken with a digiscoping setup. Distance is now roughly 90 meters. Less retouching was required than in the previous shots. Once the Falcon clearly had finished with its meal and grooming, I moved up hoping for photographs with better detail. I would approach 10 paces (slowly), snap a few shots, then repeat. 90m is as close as I got before the Falcon hopped a few fence posts to the left. I held that position, and before long the Falcon flew away.
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