Hello Everyone,
Sunday, October 20th
Just like two weeks ago the weather did not look good for banding on Saturday, so Trudi, Rick, and I decided to band on Sunday and Monday instead. Winds for those days were predicted to be medium out of the Southwest. We drove up Saturday afternoon so we could get an early start on Sunday. The next morning we went into Two Harbors to have breakfast at Judy's Cafe, thinking we would start a little later than usual. After that, we headed back to Hawk Harbor, loaded up the banding gear in Rick's truck, and went out to the banding station. We were set up and ready to go by 9:00 am.
We didn't expect many birds to be moving since there was a light fog hanging over the hayfield. But, ten minutes later, a young male Sharp-shinned Hawk was out hunting in the draw and saw our lure. It came in fast and low right into the front net! Our first bird of the weekend! We banded it, took some photos, and Rick released it.
Nothing else came by while the fog was lifting and an hour had passed before we got our next bird. An adult male shin was cutting across the middle of the field, saw the lure, changed course, and hit the front net.
Another hour passed before we started catching a shin every fifteen minutes or so. Six more shins came in before we had our first bounce out around 12:30 pm. That brought our tally up to eight shins by "noon-thirty".
All the large hawks seemed to be going around us or were too high up for us to lure them down. We did have a Rough-legged Hawk come in. That was the first one we had seen this year. It made a nice approach, looking like it was going to commit, but at the last second it pulled up into the trees above our blind. One other large hawk, a red-tail, made a pass at our fake owl, but other than that, all the other red-tails were soaring over at extreme heights.
We caught four more shins between 1:00 pm and 2:00 pm. Some of them had full crops and some were still molting. The last shin of the day came in around 2:00 pm. After that, it seemed like the migration had just dried up. We kept trying, but with nothing coming our way, we decided to close down at 4:30 pm. After that Trudi, Rick, and I went into Duluth to have supper at the local Perkins Restaurant.
We got a total of 12 birds and 1 bounce-out on Sunday.
12 Sharp-shinned Hawks.
Monday, October 21st
We had a super bright moon shining down on us that night, casting shadows all over Hawk Harbor. By morning, the winds had shifted slightly to the South. We drove out to the banding station and had everything set up by 8:00 am.
The winds were dying off and huge thermals were rising from the fields. Most of the migrating raptors soared up almost out of sight, with very little chance of us catching any. Around 9:00 am, we saw a Red-tailed Hawk flying low, out over the North side of the field. There was an adult Sharp-shinned Hawk taking shots at it. The red-tail went South, but the shin locked on to our lure and shot right in. That was the only hawk we caught that day. We banded it, took some photos, and Trudi released it.
We got a total of 1 bird and no bounce-outs on Monday.
1 Sharp-shinned Hawk.
13 birds for the weekend.
75 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!
Trudi & Frank Taylor
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.