Fifth Weekend of Banding 2023

Hello Everyone,

Here is my fifth report of the 2023 banding season, covering the weekend of September 30th, 2023.

Monday, October 2nd

This report is a little late as I had Grandpa duties in Duluth on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Also, the weather on the North Shore was horrible (rainy and socked in all weekend) so we could not have done any banding anyway. Sunday, while I was driving home, I got a call from my life-long falconry friend Larry Miller. He said he and his wife Jude were up from their home in Florida and would be staying in Two Harbors to do some sight seeing and maybe get in a couple days hawk banding out at our place. I called Rick to see if he would be willing to come up on Monday and Tuesday, since we didn't do any banding on the weekend due to the bad weather. He agreed and said he would meet me at Hawk Harbor 7:30 am, Monday morning.

Monday morning, I got up at 4:00 am and drove the three hours back up to Hawk Harbor to meet Rick. Trudi was in Florida and Nancy and Chuck were still busy at home. I met Rick at Hawk Harbor and we drove up to the banding station about an hour before Larry and Jude came up. They have been annual visitors to our banding station for years, but couldn't make it last year. It was great to see them back again! The weather had cleared and there was no wind. Lots of birds started getting up all around us.

At 8:45, we caught our first bird of the day. It took a shot at our fake owl, saw the lure, and came right in. It was an adult female Sharp-shinned Hawk. We banded it, took photos, and Jude got to let it go. A few minutes later, another shin stooped in from high up, but just clipped the top of the front net and got out! RATS!!! Later, a Northern Harrier drifted in from the North and made a slow pass in front, missing the net. Then it went out and made a few stoops at the fake owl. Nice to see some bigger birds in the field!

We started catching shins in rapid succession. Some hit the front net, some hit the back net. We ended up getting 15 more sharp-shins that day. We saw lots of them passing high over us but, most of them ignored our lure. Only the low ones made any attempt at all. Around 2:00, we saw a peregrine flying over Hawk Harbor, but it was too far away to lure in. We saw 2 more peregrines that day, one at 3:30, and another one at 4:00. Both came right over us. We closed down at 4:00, and then Jude and Larry took Rick and me out for supper at Culvers in Two Harbors.

We got a total of 16 birds and 3 bounce-outs on Monday.

16 Sharp-shinned Hawks.

Tuesday, October 3rd

Larry came out alone on Tuesday while Jude stayed back at the hotel to take care of some room transfers. We watched a beautiful sunrise as we headed up to the blind. Everything was set up and ready to go at 7:30. The weather was still clear and the strong South winds that were predicted had not started up yet.

Again we started seeing a lot of shins getting up. We caught our first shin at 7:45, followed by a second shin just a few minutes later. The third shin, a little male, came in hot and high! He went over the front net, hit the back net, bounced out of the back net, hit the back of the front net, and bounced out of that one as well! A double bounce out! Guess he didn't like the idea of wearing jewelry! We caught five more shins that day.

At 11:05, we saw a bigger accipiter making a pass at our fake owl. As it pitched up, Rick pulled the lure and it locked on. It made a nice long slanting stoop straight into the front net! It was an adult female Cooper's Hawk! It was nice to get something other than a shin. We banded it, took photos, and Larry released it.

Things slowed way down after the Cooper's Hawk. We had a young Bald Eagle make a close pass and later we saw another adult Peregrine Falcon go by. We closed down at 1:00, said our goodbyes to Larry and drove home.

We got a total of 8 birds and one bounce-out on Tuesday.

7 Sharp-shinned Hawks and 1 Cooper's Hawk.

24 total birds for the weekend.

73 total birds for the season.

Please help hawks by supporting:

Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory (www.hawkridge.org)

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

National Eagle Center (www.nationaleaglecenter.org)

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

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

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

Keep your eyes on the skies!