[Birdnet] Falcon/Ruff incident on AI Causeway

[David Jensen]

I sent this report in yesterday but don't know why it didn't get posted. Must have done something wrong.
This is David Jensen and I, along with two other birders, was the one who watched a Prairie Falcon dive into a group of Killdeer and one Ruff and possibl/probably take the Ruff.
I phoned this story in its briefest form to someone but didn't get the whole thing out. I was very surprised to see all those messages sent in regarding the sighting since I hadn't had a chance to tell about it yet. Anyway...
On Saturday the 3rd two other birders and I stopped on the AI causeway, south side about 1 mile east of the first culvert off the island, to look at a group of shorebirds. There were about 10 Killdeer and one bird that had its back to us but had pink/orange legs. We waited for it to turn toward us and it did. We scoped it and it was a Ruff. We were very excited and took turns looking at it through the one scope. What happened next occurred very quickly. One of the other birder's sons slammed their truck door loudly and what we thought was the entire flock of birds took off like a shot, headed east. They all looked the same in the air - distinct Killdeer wing markings and tails. Two "beats" later and we looked toward the west just as a Prairie Falcon came in like a bullet and hit the spot where the birds had been standing, and came up off the ground with a shorebird in its talons. We were a bit stunned by this. Like I said, it all happened very quickly. I
 got a brief look at the tail of the nabbed bird as the falcon lifted off and it was fanned open - it had a black terminal tail band and moving up the tail the only color I saw was white - I wasn't able to see if the tail had the "U" shape described in guides that occurs in Ruffs. The falcon carried its prey out to the ice, not very far, and clutched it in its talons as it stood there. It kept looking back toward us. The bird it had was lying on its side with its back toward us, clutched in the talons, and I tried to get a better look at it to see if it was a Killdeer or the Ruff. I didn't see any rufous coloring (tail) at all and we assumed the bird was the Ruff. Then we made the mistake of looking away for a couple of seconds. When we turned back the falcon had just lifted off the ice and was flying away from us. The odd thing was that it didn't look like it was carrying anything - nothing was dangling from talons below the body. We couldn't figure it
 out. We thought it might have dropped the bird or it had gotten away and we scanned the area thoroughly - no escaped prey was to be seen.
That's the story. I've read all the other comments made before I posted this. There were not other birders near us when this happened. The falcon was a Prairie, not a Perigrine (we'd seen a juvenile Perigrine earlier along the norht side of the causeway, perched on what looks like an old bale of hay - one person who commented on this incident took a photo of a bird he says was the culprit and it looks exactly like the juvie Peregrine we saw. I wish I could know for sure if it was the Ruff that was nabbed and what happened to it. It would also be nice to know the full story re the earlier posted story regarding the Peregrine trying to take a Ruff. That isn't meant to be snotty - it just fascinates me - wonder if someone was watching from a longer distance away or if an entirely different incident took place around the time ours did.
That's the story. Wish it had appeared yesterday when I sent it in.
Thanks all.
David Jensen


      
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