Banding Totals for 2017

Hi All,

Well, this is it, my final tally for the 2017 banding season. This year we banded a total of 132 birds. Last year we caught 170. We got fewer birds this year than last year because of a skunked weekend and a weather-called weekend.

We get lots of birds visiting each year, 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 64 individuals and 7 organized groups containing 56 people. A total of 120 guests were able to have an exceptional hawk viewing experience up at our site this year!

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

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

The National Eagle Center (www.nationaleaglecenter.org) and

Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory (www.hawkridge.org).

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

A very special THANK YOU goes to Mr. Mattson for letting us use his hay field for the forty-eighth year in a row.

Also a big THANK YOU goes to Tina Cisewski for supplying our lure birds this year.

THANK YOU also goes to Greg Mikkelson for bringing up more trailer loads of firewood.

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!!!!!!

Here it is, the final breakdown.