Fourth Weekend of Banding 2012

September 22, 2012

Hi All,

Here we go with my fourth report of the banding season for the weekend of September 22nd, 2012.

Last spring my good buddy Marc Rude and his wife Jackie obtained four tickets for the Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons concert held on Saturday the 22nd at the old State Theatre in downtown Minneapolis. They asked Trudi and me to join them, so we stayed home on Saturday to go see the concert with them. That night we had supper at the Rock Bottom Cafe and then went next door to see the concert. The food was great and the concert was fabulous! His sound is as good as it ever was and the number of hit tunes he did for a guy his age was astounding. We all said it was probably the best concert we had ever been to. Earlier that day, Trudi and I figured as long as we were home on a fall Saturday morning and the weather was tolerable, we would pull out our sailboat "White Wings" that we keep on a buoy at the city dock on White Bear Lake. This is always an ordeal as the winds are usually howling, the weather is usually crap and the lake level continues to drop, making it a gamble as to whether we will be able to get the boat on the trailer without disconnecting it from the car. Joy of joys, the stars aligned as our boat came out smoothly and we got it home safely and it's now sitting on the trailer in the back yard. Trudi complimented me on the procedure by saying that she had not learned any "new" swear words and didn't even hear any of the old ones that usually accompany this task.

So that we would be able to put more band records on the tally, Chuck and Nancy, assisted by their faithful dog Maggie, went up and worked the banding station on Saturday. A couple from Aitkin, MN that are good friends of theirs also came up to see the operation. Rick took the weekend off to help his Dad move some stuff and Todd went fishing and then pulled his boat off the lake where he had kept it for the summer.

Chuck and Nancy set up a little later than usual at 9:30 am, with strong northwest winds blowing. A cold front caused a few clouds and some showers to keep coming over all that day. Nice weather for hawk trapping! At 9:38 am, a young male Sharp-shinned hawk hit the net and stuck. Yay, the first bird of the day! The next 2 shins bounced out! But then at 11:00 am a young male Goshawk got caught. Our first Goshawk of the season! At 1:00, an adult Red-tailed hawk dropped in from the tree above the blind and hit the back of the front net. At 1:45 a young female Goshawk that was already banded came in. At 2:22 another adult Red-tailed hawk got caught. Then they caught 3 Sharp-shinned hawks and 2 more Red-tails before closing down the blind at 5:15. That night they went over to Emily's Light House restaurant for supper and met up with Greg Mikkelson who was trapping up at his place.

We got a total of 10 birds and 5 bounce-outs on Saturday.

2 Goshawks, 4 Red-tailed hawks and 4 Sharp-shinned hawks.

Sunday morning, Marc Rude and I drove up to meet Chuck and Nancy in the main blind at about 8:00 am. They had started trapping that morning at 7:30 am, and had already caught and banded a young female Merlin at 7:48 am. A little while after Marc and I arrived, I was heading out to set "Lovey Dovey" (our mechanical dove) up in the field out front, when Chuck shouted, "Freeze!" An adult female Sharp-shinned hawk flew right past me and into the net! Later, three white-tail deer came out in the field to check out "Lovey Dovey"; one of them snorted and stomped its foot at the strange little bird. At 9:23 am we had a shin bounce out and at 9:32 am, a young male Merlin zipped in behind the front net and bounced out. Arrgh! We caught one more shin and had another bounce out when 2 shins decide to stoop the lure at once. A young male and a young female hit the nets at the same time (12:45) and we had our first "Double" of the season. One in the front net and one in the back net! Yippy Skippy! Things slowed way down after that and the last bird we caught for the day was a young female Merlin at 2:28. We closed down at 3:00 and while I was walking down the hill to get the mini-van, a young male Peregrine flew down the tree line, just about twenty feet over my head!

We got 7 birds and 3 bounce-outs on Sunday.

2 Merlins and 5 Sharp-shinned hawks.

Total for the weekend was 17 birds and 8 bounce-outs.

2 Merlins, 2 Goshawks, 4 Red-tailed hawks and 9 Sharp-shinned hawks.

Grand Total for the year is 46.

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. Nancy and Chuck were the only ones working the blind on Saturday.

Fourth Weekend 2012.

02. They got two Goshawks on Saturday, one male and one female. These were the first Goshawks of this banding season.

Photo by Nancy Schotzko.

Fourth Weekend 2012.

03. The second Goshawk, the female, was already banded.

Photo by Nancy Schotzko.

Fourth Weekend 2012.

04. They caught four Red-tailed hawks, all adults.

Photo by Nancy Schotzko.

Fourth Weekend 2012.

05. Barring on one of the Red-tail's tail.

Photo by Nancy Schotzko.

Fourth Weekend 2012.

06. Young adult Red-tail; you can see an immature primary has not molted yet.

Photo by Nancy Schotzko.

Fourth Weekend 2012.

07. Chuck pulling a Sunday morning shin out of the net with help from Nancy and their dog Maggie. Marc Rude came up with me for the day and is standing by on the left.

Fourth Weekend 2012.