3/25/02 Extra: Here is a fine description for the Estabrook bird list-- a Gyrfalcon pursuit seen in 1896 by William Brewster near his October Farm. Walton (1984) at p. 122 cites the 1896 observation with approval, as does Griscom (1949) at 206. Brewster's lively description connects the gyr to Estabrook Woods:

"November 21, 1896

Despite the depressing and very disagreeable weather I saw some interesting birds and one that was actually new to me. I took it to be a Gray Gyrfalcon. It was of about the size and general coloring of an immature female Gos-hawk but it had the long, sharp-pointed Falcon wings and it flapped them as a Duck Hawk does with a continuous, rapid, vibrating movement. My experience with this bird was as follows:

I was paddling past the Buttricks' on my way down river at about 8:30 A.M. when I noticed three tame Pigeons flying high in air towards Mr. Derby's barn, coming from the direction of the town. Just as they were passing over the Buttricks' house, the Falcon appeared about one hundred yards off and coming directly towards them. They turned back at once, at the same time separating. The Falcon chose a white bird (the other two were blue) and pursued it hotly.

The Pigeon made scarce one hundred yards before it was overtaken but it had been rising the while and when its pursuer came up he was a yard or more under it. Wheeling with easy grace and bounding upward twenty feet or more with a single effort of his powerful wings he got well above his prey and shot towards it down a steep incline. "Poor bird, your fate is sealed!" I said to myself as, with the field glass pressed to my eyes, I gazed breathlessly, watching the Falcon's belly with the full expectation of seeing him extend his legs to seize his victim. To my surprise, he did not show so much as the tips of his talons but, on overtaking the Pigeon, he seemed to strike it with his breast, half upsetting it and sending it a yard or more downward before it could recover its equilibrium. Then, setting his wings, he scaled off swiftly towards the Estabrook woods--the direction whence he had first come--leaving the Pigeon to pursue its way unmolested, at a lower level, to its home in the Derby barn."

William Brewster's journals (unpublished at MCZ). Quoted in Richard K. Walton, Birds of the Sudbury River Valley- A Historical Perspective (1984) p. 92.