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Gyrfalcon — printable fact sheet
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Gyrfalcon
Falco rusticolus
Falco rusticolus is the largest falcon in the world, a bulky, broad-winged Arctic bird whose females can top 2 kg, and its hunting method sets it apart from its famous cousin the peregrine. Where a peregrine stoops from height, the gyrfalcon typically flies low and hard in a tai…
Did you know?
- Unlike most falcons, Gyrfalcons do not build their own nests but instead reuse the abandoned nests of other large birds such as ravens or golden eagles.
- Gyrfalcon nest ledges in Greenland have been dated by their accumulated droppings to more than two and a half millennia of continuous use, making them among the oldest known bird nesting sites on Earth. In 1396 Bayezid I demanded, and received, gyrfalcons as part of the ransom for a captured French nobleman. Gyrfalcons do not build nests at all - they lay on bare scrapes or squat in others' structures.
What I learned
Draw the gyrfalcon
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