Saker Falcon
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| Falco cherrug Gray, 1834 |
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 Range of the Saker Falcon.
Yellow = breeding Blue = wintering Green = all-year |
The Saker Falcon (Falco cherrug) is a large falcon. This species breeds from eastern Europe eastwards across Asia to Manchuria. It is mainly migratory except in the southernmost parts of its range, wintering in Ethiopia, the Arabian peninsula, northern India and western China. During the end of the last ice age - oxygen isotope stages 3-2 or some 40,000 to 10,000 years ago -, it also occurred in Poland (Tomek & Bocheński 2005).
The Saker Falcon is a very large falcon, almost as large as Gyr Falcon at 47-55cm length with a wingspan of 105-129cm. Its broad blunt wings give it a silhouette similar to Gyr Falcon, but its plumage is more similar to a Lanner Falcon's. It is a carnivore, usually hunting by horizontal pursuit, rather than the Peregrine's stoop from a height, and feeds mainly on rodents and more rarely birds.
Saker Falcons have brown upperparts and contrasting grey flight feathers. The head and underparts are paler brown, with streaking from the breast down. Males (sakrets) and females are similar, as are young birds, although these tend to be a duller brown. The call is a sharp "kiy-ee".
Adults can be distinguished from the similar Lanner Falcon since the Lanner is blue-grey above with a whitish belly. However, juveniles of the two species can be very similar although the Lanner never shows the all-dark thighs of the Saker.
A further complication is that some Asian birds have grey barred upperparts; these must be separated from Lanner on size, structure, and a weaker moustache stripe. Saker Falcons at the northeast edge of the range in the Altay Mountains are slightly larger, and darker and more heavily spotted on the underparts than other populations. These, known as the Altai Falcon, have been treated in the past either as a distinct species "Falco altaicus" or as a hybrid between Saker Falcon and Gyr Falcon, but modern opinion (e.g. Orta 1994) is to tentatively treat it as a form of Saker Falcon, until comprehensive studies of its population genetics and ecology are available.
The Saker Falcon is a bird of open grassland with some trees. It lays 3-6 eggs on the ground or in an old stick nest in a tree. Both sexes incubate for about 28 days.
BirdLife International categorises this bird as endangered, due to a rapid population decline, particularly on the central Asian breeding grounds. The main cause of the decline is due to birds being captured, usually illegally, for falconry. The current population was estimated to be between 7,200 and 8,800 mature individuals in 2004.
 Captive Saker Falcon |
 Captive Saker Falcon |
 Captive Saker Falcon |
[edit] References
- BirdLife International (2004). Falco cherrug. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 11 May 2006. Database entry includes a range map, a brief justification of why this species is endangered, and the criteria used
- Orta, Jaume (1994): 57. Saker Falcon. In: del Hoyo, Josep; Elliott, Andrew & Sargatal, Jordi (editors): Handbook of Birds of the World, Volume 2: New World Vultures to Guineafowl: 273-274, plate 28. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. ISBN 84-87334-15-6
- Tomek, Teresa & Bocheński, Zygmunt (2005): Weichselian and Holocene bird remains from Komarowa Cave, Central Poland. Acta zoologica cracoviensia 48A(1-2): 43-65. PDF fulltext
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