It's a bird! It's a plane! Or maybe it was Kenai the gyrfalcon.

After dozens of tips placed the missing raptor as far west as Port Angeles, as far south as Vancouver, Wash., and all over Puget Sound, keepers from Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo managed to catch up with her yesterday afternoon in a field between Monroe and Duvall.

"She's resting quietly, probably very glad to be home," said zoo spokeswoman Gigi Allianic. "I'm just so glad we found her."

The gyrfalcon (that's JHUR-fall-kon) had been missing since Sunday, when she launched into the sunny skies for a flight demonstration at the zoo and decided to just keep flapping.

A tracking device on her leg helped zookeepers zero in on her location, Allianic said.

They first spotted her on a remote hilltop near the Snoqualmie River around 9:30 a.m., but couldn't get close enough to call her with shrill whistles and a lasso-like lure bearing one of Kenai's favorite snacks — quail. She later flew to an agricultural field, where keepers were able to call her to the lure.

A quick exam at the zoo's hospital found she had lost some weight, but was otherwise OK, Allianic said. Born in captivity, Kenai has lived at the zoo since she was seven weeks old and does not know how to hunt for herself. Zoo officials believe she had not eaten since Sunday afternoon.

The football-sized falcon, the largest in North America, hails from the arctic regions of North America, Greenland, Europe and Asia. Kenai, named for the region in Alaska, has a gray head and a black and white breast and belly.

This was Kenai's second flight from the zoo. In 2003, she went missing for five days until a landfill worker spotted a bird that looked out of place among the seagulls at the Cedar Hills Landfill in Maple Valley.

Zoo officials are not sure what prompted either journey. Kenai's keepers say birds get different hormonal surges through the year and Kenai may have felt migratory, or felt the need to defend her territory from neighborhood raptors.

"We appreciate the community, because they keep their eyes peeled for her," Allianic said.

Karen Gaudette: 206-515-5618 or kgaudette@seattletimes.com