Hello All,
This is my third report of the 2026 banding season, covering the weekend of September 19th, 2026.
This is our 57th consecutive season of trapping raptors on the Mattson’s hay field!!!
Rick went up to Hawk Harbor Friday afternoon to get the nets set up and ready for Saturday morning. I was helping Trudi do her monthly sing-a-long for the seniors and did not get up there until later that evening. Trudi didn’t go up as she had weekend commitments at home. Brynn was still driving home from a job site way up north.
Saturday, September 19th
The weather looked bad for migration, but great for tourism on the North Shore. It was a nice sunny day, but the winds were coming out of the east-north-east. We loaded our gear into the back of Rick’s truck and went out to the blind. We were set up and ready to go at 7:30 am.
Our first bird of the day was a Sharp-shinned hawk that was out hunting in the line of bushes that run across the middle of the field. When it popped up and over to our side of the bushes, Rick pulled the lure and it shot straight in and hit the front net at 8:17 am. Yeay! We are not skunked today! We caught another shin at 9:00 am that was doing the same thing. Each morning when we start at the banding station, I always throw a little bird seed out in the field as an offering to the banding gods for good luck. (Kind of like a sailor does with rum to appease Neptune). Thousands of Blue Jays were migrating over the blind, and it didn’t take long for them to notice the bird seed. A small group of them were gobbling down the seeds out front, when a little male shin came blasting out of the woods after them. What a gutsy little devil! A Blue Jay is bigger than he is! Well, he missed them all and when Rick gave him another option with the lure, he zipped right into the net!
Around 10:00 am, we began seeing Broad-winged hawks and Redtails starting to soar. At 10:15 am, we had a redtail come over us at a pretty good height and when we thought it had passed over, it stooped straight down into the nets. A litte while later, a Merlin that no one saw coming in, hit the net! Our first Merlin of the day! While we were banding the Merlin, a Blue Jay that was out eating the free seed took a short cut into the woods but ended up in our net! After we released the Blue Jay, Bill Tefft from Ely, MN stopped by. He was heading to Duluth to do some field guiding for a group attending Happy Hawk Weekend 2026 at Hawk Ridge. Bill had just settled into the blind when we saw a Merlin out in the field. Rick worked the lure and it came shooting in! Bill got to release that one. For some unknown reason, three more Blue Jays took turns flying into our net! We caught 2 more shins before things got so slow that we decided to close down at 3:00 pm.
We got a total of 7 birds and had no bounce-outs on Saturday.
4 Sharp-shinned hawks, 2 Merlins, and 1 Red-tailed hawk.
Sunday, September 20th
Sunday morning we headed back out to the blind and were ready to start at 7:20 am. The winds were still out of the east-north-east and predicted to get stonger as the day went on. We caught three shins by 8:30 am, and then things really slowed down. We had one more Red-tailed hawk make a nice stoop all the way from out over the farm. At the last second it pulled up into the tree over the blind and then took off. A little while later Bill brought up his group from Hawk Ridge. I gave them a tour of the banding station, told them the history of our operation, and then handed out my art prints to everyone. We watched a few hawks go over while the group was there and then they continued on their way. The winds became so strong that the nets were getting blown down, so we closed down at 11:00 am.
We got a total of 3 birds and had no bounce-outs on Sunday.
3 Sharp-shinned hawks.
10 total birds for the weekend.
131 total birds for the season. (One other bird banded during the week).
Later that day I drove up to Hawk Ridge and met lots of good friends. I decided to stay over Sunday night at Hawk Harbor to avoid the weekend traffic heading back to the Twin Cities. So, that evening, I drove to Two Harbors to get a sandwich and sit at the park in Agate Bay. I drove home Monday morning.
(All birds are humanely captured, banded, and immediately released unharmed under a federal license issued by The U.S. Geological Survey through The Federal Bird Banding Laboratory.)
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
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| 01. Our first hawk of the weekend was, you guessed it, a Sharp-shinned hawk! |
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| 02. Brynn holding our first hawk of the day. |
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| 03. A young female Sharp-shinned hawk. |
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| 04. Our neighbor Don stopped by to give us some of his home-grown cherry tomatoes. |
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| 05. Brynn releasing the shin. |
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| 06. Another young female Sharp-shinned hawk. |
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| 07. Rick holding the Sharp-shinned hawk. |
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| 08. Rick releasing the shin. |
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| 09. A young male Sharp-shinned hawk. |
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| 10. Frank holding the shin. |
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| 11. Red-tailed hawks started coming over. |
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| 12. A red-tail coming in. |
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| 13. Brynn and Rick taking the redtail out of the net. |
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| 14. A young Red-tailed hawk. |
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| 15. A young Red-tailed hawk. |
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| 16. Frank, Brynn, and Rick holding the red tail. |
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| 17. A Merlin. |
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| 18. A Merlin. |
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| 19. Thousands of Blue Jays went over! |
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| 20. One of four Blue Jays that got caught. |
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| 21. Another Blue Jay hit the net. |
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| 22. Another Merlin. |
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| 23. The second Merlin of the day. |
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| 24. Frank, Bill, Brynn, and Rick holding the Merlin. |
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| 25. Bill holding the Merlin |
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| 26. Bill releasing the Merlin. |
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| 27. We caught two more shins that day. |
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| 28. This one was our 100th shin of the season! |
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| 29. Frank releasing the 100th shin of the season. |
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| 30. A Sunday morning sunrise. |
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| 31. A Sunday morning shin coming in for a look. |
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| 32. He couldn’t resist the lure! |
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| 33. A young shin. |
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| 34. An adult Sharp-shinned hawk. |
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| 35. An adult Sharp-shinned hawk. |
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| 36. We caught 3 shins on Sunday. |
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| 37. A young Sharp-shinned hawk. |
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| 38. Bill Tefft was guiding a group from Hawk Ridge and stopped by to see our banding station. I gave them all a tour and some of my art prints |
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| 39. I stopped up at Hawk Ridge and met lots of good friends. |
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40. A giant gull stopped my car at Agate Bay Lighthouse Park!!!
(It looks really huge in the photo, but in reality, it was just sitting on my hood!) |
