Gyrfalcon Photos

Photography by Terry Sohl

My Favorite: A relic of days gone by. When I first started in birding and photography, I was really struggling with "length" of my equipment, trying to get close enough to birds to get photos with the equipment I had. For a couple of years in the early 2000s, I tried focusing on "digiscoping", linking a compact digital camera with a spotting scope. I had a very nice Swarovski scope that was crystal clear and sharp, and while digiscoping wasn't ideal, it could sometimes result in some very nice pictures, from distances that you typically can't do with typical camera bodies. This is one of my best digiscoped shots from that era, of a young Gyrfalcon spreading its wings. I love this photo so much that it's typically my avatar for many sites online.

Gyrfalcon - Falco rusticolus


Gyrfalcon 1	Gyrfalcon 2	Gyrfalcon 3	Gyrfalcon 4
February 16th, 2004	January 17th, 2010	December 22nd, 2006	January 7th, 2006
Near Presho, South Dakota	Fort Pierre National Grasslands, South Dakota	Fort Pierre National Grasslands, South Dakota	Near Presho, South Dakota
Juvenile gray-phase falcon spreading its wings	Juvenile gray-phase bird in flight on a blue sky day	Adult gray-phase Gyrfalcon on top of a telephone pole	Juvenile gray-morph falcon on top of a telephone pole

Gyrfalcon 5	Gyrfalcon 6	Gyrfalcon 7	Gyrfalcon 8
January 17th, 2010	January 17th, 2010	February 12th, 2011	February 12th, 2011
Fort Pierre National Grasslands, South Dakota	Fort Pierre National Grasslands, South Dakota	Fort Pierre National Grasslands, South Dakota	Fort Pierre National Grasslands, South Dakota
Immature gray-phase Gyrfalcon flying in clear blue skies	Immature gray-phase Gyrfalcon flying in clear blue skies	Immature dark-phase Gyrfalcon perched on dead branch	Immature dark-phase Gyrfalcon perched on dead branch

Gyrfalcon 9	Gyrfalcon 10	Gyrfalcon 11	Gyrfalcon 12
January 17th, 2010	December 22nd, 2015	December 22nd, 2015	December 22nd, 2015
Fort Pierre National Grasslands, South Dakota	Fort Pierre National Grasslands, South Dakota	Fort Pierre National Grasslands, South Dakota	Fort Pierre National Grasslands, South Dakota
Juvenile gray-morph Gyrfalcon flying over open prairie	Immature gray-phase Gyrfalcon in flight	Immature gray-phase Gyrfalcon in flight	Immature gray-morph Gyrfalcon perched on telephone pole

Gyrfalcon 13
January 2nd, 2020
Fort Pierre National Grasslands, South Dakota
Adult gray-morph Gyrfalcon perched on top of telephone pole