• Skip to Content
  • Skip to Main Navigation
  • Skip to Local Navigation
  • Skip to Search
  • Skip to Sitemap
  • Skip to Footer
Help develop a Bird ID tool!

Gyrfalcon

Falco rusticolus ORDER: FALCONIFORMES FAMILY: FALCONIDAE

IUCN Conservation Status: Least Concern

  • Similar Species
  • Related Species
  • Go to:

The largest falcon in the world, the Gyrfalcon breeds in arctic and subarctic regions of the northern hemisphere. It preys mostly on large birds, pursuing them in breathtakingly fast and powerful flight.

Get BNA: the definitive resource for North American birds
Donate to Bird Cams

Calls

  • Captive calls
  • Courtesy of Macaulay Library
    © Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Alarm call is a guttural "kak, kak, kak." Contact call, given during foraging and food transfer, is a sharp "chup...chup...chup."

Get BNA: the definitive resource for North American birds
Search the Macaulay Library online archive for more sounds and videos