North Shore Banding - Frank Taylor: November 2019

Hi All,

Well, this is it, the final tally for the 2019 banding season. This year marked our 50^th year trapping hawks in the Mattson hay field along the beautiful North Shore of Lake Superior near Duluth, Minnesota! We dedicate this year to Mr. Roy Mattson, who 50 years ago allowed me to use his hay field to trap birds for falconry. Along the way, I began using the facility only to band migrating raptors for the U.S. Bird Banding Laboratory at the U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior, and was joined early on by sub-banders Rick Dupont and Chuck Schotzko with help from Trudi Taylor, Nancy Schotzko and Todd Rosengren.

On February 13th of this year, Mr. Roy Mattson passed away at the age of 99. Through the ongoing generosity of his children, Don and Dottie, we have been able to remain at the banding station. Rest in peace, Mr. Mattson, and know how many lives you have enriched through your kindness!

This year we banded a total of 97 birds. (Last year we caught 106.) While we would have loved to have had greater numbers of birds for this anniversary year, it was not to be, basically because of adverse weather and wind conditions on the days (weekends) when we could be up banding. One weekend had to be canceled entirely due to storms. Additionally, by the time we finally got good Northwest winds late in the season, primarily only the (very smart!) adult birds were still passing by, and by then they were focused on getting out of town to warmer climes rather than stopping by for a piece of jewelry!

Of course, as we do every year, we get lots of birds visiting the banding station, but we also get a good number of relatives, friends, falconers, birders and students coming up to share in the fun. I did a tally again this year of individuals who were up enjoying our banding activities. I counted each person only once, even if they came up multiple times. We had 74 individuals and 4 organized groups containing 43 people. A total of 117 guests were able to have an exceptional hawk viewing experience at our site this year!

I hope their visit inspires each of them to a greater appreciation of our feathered friends, the raptors, and to make donations to:

Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory (www.hawkridge.org)

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

The National Eagle Center (www.nationaleaglecenter.org)

Midwest Peregrine Society (https://midwestperegrine.umn.edu/)

Raptor Resource Project (https://www.raptorresource.org/)

Twin Cities Metro Osprey Watch (http://ospreywatch.blogspot.com/)

Please support the people who work to help the raptors in our state.

A very special THANK YOU goes to the Mattson family for letting us use their hay field for the 50th year in a row.

Also a big THANK YOU goes to Bob Crosbie for supplying our lure birds this year.

THANK YOU also goes to Greg Mikkelson for bringing up firewood.

Special THANK YOU goes to Nancy and Chuck Schotzko for designing and surprising us with our 50th Year T-shirts.

Last but not least, I really must say a BIG THANK YOU to every one of our banding crew who came up to do the banding again this year. What a great and dedicated team of regulars we have. Trudi Taylor, Rick Dupont, Chuck & Nancy Schotzko and Todd Rosengren: without your dedication and co-operation, we would not be able to do this thing we love so much, year after year.

THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH!!!!!!

We banded a total of 97 raptors for the 2019 season (we had a total of 106 raptors last season).

We had a total of 9 bounce-outs this year (we had 11 last year).

Thanks for being such great friends and sharing an interest in our modest program!

We hope to see you all again next fall, and meanwhile keep your eyes on the skies!

Frank & Trudi Taylor

Here it is, the final breakdown.