First Weekend of Banding 2012

September 1, 2012

Hi All,

Here we go, my first report of the banding season for the weekend of September 1, 2012.

Since my last report in 2011, we have had another interesting year. This season, Mim and I caught a few rabbits but I had the season cut short by an ulcer that ate through my stomach lining and hit an artery. I was so convinced it was just a gall bladder attack that I didn’t go to the doctor until it was almost too late. To make a long story short, I had lost over half my blood, but it only took them about 20 minutes in the I.C.U. to go in, find it and fix it. A few days and a few bags of blood later, they let me out and I was as good as new.

In March Trudi and I took a vacation to Daytona Beach, Florida. Trudi’s brother Rudi and his wife Dawn had us stay in the house they bought next door and showed us a wonderful time. After all the work Trudi did last year getting her Mom set up in a senior living home near us, it was nice to have a real vacation.

In mid-August, members of the Minnesota Falconers Association and I did our 31^st annual Game Fair up in Ramsey, Minnesota. This was Mim’s eighth year out there. The weather was very nice this year and we had a lot of falconers come out to help.  The week after Game Fair, Mim and I did two shows at the Minnesota State Fair for Ron Schara and the Minnesota Bound television show.

This is our 43rd consecutive year of trapping hawks at the Mattson farm.

It was in September of 1970 that I first asked Mr. Mattson if we could use his hayfield to “see if we could catch a couple hawks”. After catching over 3,000 of those hawks and forty-three years later, it still seems like only yesterday to me.

Trudi and I went up to Two Harbors the last weekend of August to celebrate our 20^th Anniversary. We stayed in the Americ Inn and had a very romantic spaghetti dinner at the local Pizza Hut. The rest of the time we spent weed whacking, mowing and cleaning up our camping area on our land. We also did the area around and inside the blind. While we were cleaning around the blind, Matt Solensky, who I worked with at The Raptor Center 15 years ago, stopped by with his two sons to say hi. On Wednesday, August 29^th, Trudi and I went up to Ken Holkestad’s house in Zimmerman, MN, to pick up some lure birds. This year my usual source, Bob Crosby, was not able to help us out as his loft had been wiped out by a Great Horned Owl. Ken had mentioned to me a few weeks earlier that he wanted to cull out some of his loft and that he had enough for both Bob and me. Ken is the senior falconer in our state and an Honorary Member of the Minnesota Falconers Association. He is also a fantastic artist. It is always a treat when you stop by to see him and hear about his falconry and banding adventures and to see all the fine art in and around his studio.

On Saturday, September first, Rick, Chuck and I all arrived at our land around 8:00 am. Nancy and Trudi stayed home this weekend due to other commitments. We set up our sleeping accommodations and loaded our trapping gear into my Dodge Caravan. When we got up to the blind we didn’t have to do any cleaning, so we strung up the nets and were ready to go by 9:30 am. Winds were light out of the southeast and the sky was clear. It was not a good wind for migration but a few shins and Turkey vultures were slowly drifting by. Todd came up a little later and set up over at his spot on our land.

Around 10:30 am we saw one poor Turkey vulture being harassed by a medium sized accipiter. The little bird chased the TV all around the area until they got up to our end of the field and a little north of us. As soon as the hawk saw our lure, it broke off and came bombing straight in. At 10:40 am we got our first bird of the season, an immature female Cooper’s hawk.

We had a young male Sharp-shinned hawk drop in at 11:45 am, but it hit the top of the net and bounced out. A half an hour later we saw a young male Red-tailed hawk go straight and high over and away from us, heading east! I noticed it had very light windows on each wing between its secondaries and wing tips. It got out over the center of the field and started to catch a thermal. When it turned toward us, Rick pulled the lure and it locked right on and came in. At 12:15, we caught a nice immature male Red-tailed hawk. At 12:38 we had a young female Red-tailed hawk come straight in from the east. This bird had exactly the same markings as the previous young male.

At 1:00, I got a call from my friend Tim who lives in Duluth. He had a childhood friend Dee visiting him from Mesa, Arizona and he asked if they could stop by to show Dee what we do.  They got there a little while later but things had slowed WAY down. We were trying to explain to Dee why three old guys were hanging out in a box on the side of a field, when a fawn that was just losing its spots came walking out right in front of the blind. Everyone got a nice close up look at it. A little later an adult Red-tailed hawk stooped in but pulled up into the trees. Dee was impressed to see what it looks like when a hawk comes diving in with its big feet coming down at the last minute.

While I was out at the Game Fair this year, I saw a mechanical dove that I thought would be a good thing to try out at the blind. It’s silent and has a very realistic wing beat. It also hesitates ever few flaps to give it a very life-like motion. I bought one, brought it up with me, and put it out about 200 feet in front of the blind. It runs on three AAA batteries that last over ten hours per set. It seems so life-like that we all tried to come up with a name for it. Chuck happened to be looking at “The Floofy Bush”, a landmark tree on the horizon that Trudi had named some years ago, and came up with “Lovey Dovey”. Nice one, Chuck!  So there we were, we hadn’t seen a bird for several hours when a Merlin shot into the field and went straight for Lovey Dovey! It just missed by an inch or two, but that was enough time for Rick to pull the lure line. The Merlin pulled up, winged over and shot right into our nets. Way to go, Lovey Dovey! At 3:56 we had a nice immature female Merlin to band. We took a bunch of photos and Dee got to release the Merlin. We sat around for another hour and didn’t see anything else, so we closed down the blind at 5:00 pm.

We got a total of 4 birds and 1 bounce out on Saturday.

1 Cooper’s hawk, 2 Red-tailed hawks and 1 Merlin.

After we packed up for the night, Tim, Dee, Rick, Chuck and I headed over to the Lighthouse Restaurant for supper where I had my 45th life-time hot meatloaf sandwich with fried onions, mushrooms and an extra bowl of gravy. Even after a year had gone by, our waitress knew exactly what I was going to order right down to the diet cola, mushrooms, onions and extra gravy. Dee had such a good time up at the blind that she surprised us all and paid for our meal before we could stop her. Thank You, Dee!!! Todd stayed back at the campsite and fixed his supper on the grill and my brother Mike, who had come up later in the day, stayed back as well. When we got back to camp, Jerry Erickson, our Duluth neighbor and his friend Jesse had stopped in to have a couple beers and say hi. Mike had brought up a load of dry wood and had stoked up a fine campfire.

Sunday morning we got started at 7:30 am. It was a beautiful day with clear skies and very light southeast winds. At 7:40 am, I had just finished squeaking my Audubon birdcall when an adult female Sharp-shinned hawk hit the back net, coming in from the woods behind us. It had a full crop and must have just finished off a small bird for breakfast. Just as we were taking the shin out of the net, Natasha Leong stopped by with her friend Brian Brown. Tasha is the Minnesota Falconers Association’s secretary and was helping Brian trap a bird. Brian had obtained a non- resident trapping permit from the Minnesota DNR and they were going to go down and set up with Todd. We let Brian release the shin. Not much else was moving and the wind was freshening from the southeast so we folded up and headed home at 1:00.

We got a total of 1 bird and no bounce outs on Sunday.

1 adult Sharp-shinned hawk.

Total for the weekend was 5 birds.

1 Cooper’s hawk, 2 Red-tailed hawks, 1 Merlin and 1 Sharp-shined hawk.

Grand Total for the year is 5.

Please help hawks by supporting these organizations.

Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory (www.hawkridge.org)

The Raptor Center (www.raptor.cvm.umn.edu)

The National Eagle Center (www.nationaleaglecenter.org)

Keep your eyes on the skies.

Frank & Trudi Taylor

01. Mim and I at the Game Fair in Anoka, MN.

First Weekend 2012.

02. Mim and I at the Minnesota State Fair.

First Weekend 2012.

03. Ken Holkestad in his studio.

First Weekend 2012.

04. Chuck and Rick setting up the nets.

First Weekend 2012.

05. Rick and Chuck with our first bird of the 2012 banding season, a young female Cooper's hawk.

First Weekend 2012.

06. Chuck banding the Cooper's hawk.

First Weekend 2012.

07. Young female Cooper's hawk, "coming in" pose.

First Weekend 2012.

08. Cooper's hawk "attitude" pose.

First Weekend 2012.

09. Cooper's hawk profile.

First Weekend 2012.

10. Chuck releasing the Cooper's hawk.

First Weekend 2012.

11. Rick and Chuck with the young male Red-tailed hawk.

First Weekend 2012.

12. This bird had very distinct light color "windows" on its wings.

First Weekend 2012.

13. Young male Red-tailed hawk.

First Weekend 2012.

14. Chuck releasing the male Red-tailed hawk.

First Weekend 2012.

15. Chuck and Rick taking the second Red-tailed hawk out of the net.

First Weekend 2012.

16. Chuck banding the second Red-tailed hawk of the day.

First Weekend 2012.

17. Young female Red-tailed hawk.

First Weekend 2012.

18. This bird had exactly the same wing windows as the first Red-tail.

First Weekend 2012.

19. First Red-tailed hawk again for comparison.

First Weekend 2012.

20. Dee checking out Rick's new "suck the eyeballs out of your head" binoculars.

First Weekend 2012.

21. Young white tail deer out feeding in front of the blind.

First Weekend 2012.

22. Coming in a little closer.

First Weekend 2012.

23. Walking right up in front of us. Wind was from the east so it did not catch our scent.

First Weekend 2012.

24. Our new artificial lure catches its attention.

First Weekend 2012.

25. Our new artificial lure that Chuck named "Lovey Dovey". Runs silent with a very realistic random wing beat for ten hours on three AAA batteries.

First Weekend 2012.

26. Immature female Merlin that came in and missed hitting Lovey Dovey only by inches, allowing Rick to pull the lure line and bring it in.

First Weekend 2012.

27. Rick and Chuck taking the Merlin out of the net.

First Weekend 2012.

28. Chuck banding the Merlin.

First Weekend 2012.

29. Pretty little girl.

First Weekend 2012.

30. Tim, Dee, Chuck with the Merlin and Rick.

First Weekend 2012.

31. Dee, Me and Tim with the Merlin.

First Weekend 2012.

32. Tim and Dee with the Merlin.

First Weekend 2012.

33. Dee enjoying her first trip up to the blind and holding the Merlin.

First Weekend 2012.

34. Dee releasing the Merlin.

First Weekend 2012.

35. Sunday morning Sharp-shinned hawk.

First Weekend 2012.

36. Rick and Chuck getting the Sharp-shinned hawk out of the net.

First Weekend 2012.

37. Nice adult female Sharp-shinned hawk.

First Weekend 2012.

38. Chuck and Rick with the shin.

39. Natasha and Brian stopped by to see the shin.

First Weekend 2012.

40. Brian holding the Sharp-shinned hawk.

First Weekend 2012.

41. Brian releasing the Sharp-shinned hawk.

First Weekend 2012.