One of my current clients is a biologist, whose work includes the Rankin Inlet Peregrine Project, 
which has seen some 900 Peregrine Falcons banded since 1981 in one of the most comprehensive studies of its kind. He was the first non-inuit client of ours to know that Kiggavik is inuktitut for Gyrfalcon, and our conversation quickly turned to birds and the birds of the High Arctic in general to the falcons of Arctic Bay in particular.
Although it is probably a week or two early for the Gyrfalcons to have returned to their nest we decided we would head out to the nearest aerie and see what we could find.
The St. George Society Cliffs lie just around the corner from Arctic Bay on Adam’s Sound, and they are very impressive 200 metre vertical red stone cliffs. 
It is hard to convey just how massive they are, two football fields high, but it is easy to feel tiny next to them.
We stopped near the nest and looked out over the bright white silence of Adam’s Sound, 
and then waited and glassed the cliffs in hopes that the Gyrfalcons had already arrived.
They hadn’t of course but that did not lessen the day, Ravens soared and played 600 feet above us along the tops of the cliffs, tiny black birds wheeling and soaring along the face.
Not wanting to carry a lot of stuff I grabbed my camera but only took the telephoto zoom, anticipating taking pictures of the Gyrfalcons a hundred feet up. 
So the only views I can share don’t show the scale of the cliffs, only tightly cropped views of their face, and this photo of the cliffs at the start where they are much lower.
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Wow! Amazing photos of an amazing landscape! In spite of the fact that we both live in Arctic regions, our geography is SO different! We won’t have a real influx of birds for a couple more months. I hope you have a chance to share photos of Gyrfalcons at another time. I thought I saw one last summer, but as I view the flight pattern illustration you’ve posted I realize that I was probably mistaken. I find identifying birds rather daunting…can’t wait to receive those new books! 🙂
Thanks Kimberlee. You should have Gyrfalcon’s there, and possibly Peregrines also. I’m not really familiar with your area. That illustration of the Peregrine Falcon project only deals with the birds from one specific study which banded birds at Rankin Inlet. The poster illustrates where their banded birds were recovered and the satellite tracks of four birds that had transmitters on them. Its not representative of all Peregrines. If you get a good bird guide there will be range maps showing the likely range of individual species.
My Peterson Guide (Western) shows both species occur where you are.
Incredible landscape – those cliffs are awesome. I looked up Gryfalcon – what a beautiful bird! I do hope you get to see and photograph some later this year.
Okay, that makes me feel better! Maybe my i.d. wasn’t a mistake after all. 🙂 I should have taken a closer look at the illustration instead of assuming…
Thanks for the info!
Wow, such interesting geology and beautiful Arctic scenes.