Second Weekend of Banding 2020

Hello Everyone,

This is my second report of the 2020 banding season, covering the weekend of September 5th, 2020.

Saturday, September 5th

Trudi and I met Rick, Nancy and Chuck at Hawk Harbor around 8:00 am. Todd arrived a little later. It was nice to have the entire banding team working together again, even though we all wore masks and stayed six feet apart. We loaded all the banding gear into Rick's truck and drove up to the blind. When we got close, we noticed a young Broad-winged hawk sitting in the trees above the blind. It flew off a little ways to the North when we stopped to unload. We set up to allow good distancing between the team members. Rick was down in the lower front room of the blind in the luring position, Nancy and Chuck stayed in the back walled-off upper section to do the banding and data recording, and Trudi and I set up a pop-up blind just South of the main blind. We were ready to start at 9:10 am.

Winds were light and variable with a clear blue sky. We had been set up less than 10 minutes when a Sharp-shinned hawk popped up out by the fake owl in the draw. It saw the lure and came right in, hitting the front net. Seconds before it hit, the Broad-winged hawk that had flown off to the North, swooped in behind the shin and stuck in the back net! Woo Hoo!!! A "DOUBLE" to start off the weekend! A little while after we had banded and released those birds, Don Mattson (who owns the hay field we band in) stopped by with his son Jonathan, Jonathan's wife Jennifer, and their son Samuel. We didn't catch anything while they were there, but I did have an art print along that I signed and gave to Samuel. Later that day our neighbor Don Zerby came up on his four wheeler and brought us a box of beautiful tomatoes from his garden.

At 10:05, another shin shot out of the woods behind the blind, got in between the nets, and hit the back of the front net. We banded it, took photos, and let it go. About an hour later, a shin came in again from the woods, hit the back of the front net, and then got caught in the front of the back net. At 12:35, another shin stooped in from high to the North, went over the front net, and into the back net. Over the next four hours, things really slowed down. We had a couple young Red-tailed hawks come in to make a pass at the lure, but they pulled up and landed in the trees above us. At 4:04, a Merlin made a pass at the owl and scooted out low over the field. It saw the lure, turned and came right in. We banded it, took photos, and then Chuck and Nancy released it. That was the last bird we caught that day, closing down at 5:00 pm.

That night we took two cars, to stay distanced, and drove into Two Harbors to get Subway sandwiches for supper. They have a push button menu and a drive up window. We took our food and went back to Hawk Harbor to sit around the picnic table before turning in for the night.

We got a total of 6 birds and no bounce-outs on Saturday.

1 Broad-winged hawk, 4 Sharp-shinned hawks, and 1 Merlin.

Sunday, September 6th

Sunday morning, Trudi fixed hot chocolate and waxy donuts for everyone at Hawk Harbor. We loaded up and were back at the blinds and set up by 7:30 am. Skies were partly cloudy and the wind was very light out of the East. Around 7:45, Rick loudly whispered, "There's a wolf headed for the gap in the draw!!!" The neighbors had told us that they had been seeing a pack of 5 - 8 wolves roaming around the area over the past few weeks. This one looked like a young male. Rick pulled the lure line and it turned and came stalking towards the nets. It was about 100 feet away when it caught sight of us in the blinds. It showed no sign of fear! It just stopped, slowly turned away, and calmly walked South across the middle of the hay field toward Hawk Harbor. About half an hour later, Todd called to say it had just walked past his nets at Hawk Harbor and was headed back our way. Rick caught a final glimpse of the wolf as it crossed just North of us and headed back into the heavy brush.

We caught our first bird of the day at 8:22. It was a young female Sharp-shinned hawk that came in slow, landed in the tree above the nets, and then sat for a while before making a dive into the back net. It had a full crop! More birds started moving and we were catching mostly young female Sharp-shinned hawks about every half hour. We caught five more shins before noon and then it slowed down. One of the shins was so bold it came in right past Chuck and me while we were standing in front of the blind taking photos of another shin that we had just banded. We also had four young Bald eagles come in at various times looking like they meant business. But, they all chickened out at the last minute and landed in the trees above the blinds. We had caught and banded three more shins, when we heard a big ruckus out behind the nets. A shin chased a Yellow-shafted Northern Flicker into the back net and they both got caught! We banded that shin and released it with the flicker to continue their contest. We caught one more shin and banded it before closing down at 5:35 pm.

Back at Hawk Harbor we decided to call in an order for some pizzas from the North Shore Pizza and Cafe located on Hwy 61 in Two Harbors. Trudi and I drove in to pick them up and brought them back to the team at Hawk Harbor. Good pizza with a nice folded edge to the crust. That night after we had retired for the evening, high winds started blowing from the Northwest, waking us up and getting us all excited for the following day.

We got a total of 11 birds and no bounce-outs on Sunday.

11 Sharp-shinned hawks and 1 Flicker (not banded).

Monday, September 7th

Monday morning we loaded into Rick's truck right away without having our usual hot chocolate. The skies were hazy and the winds were blowing strong out of the Northwest. We wanted to get started as early as possible since we all needed to leave for home around noon. For some reason, Rick stopped the truck just before we got to the blinds. I jumped off the tailgate (Trudi and my favorite place to ride up to the blind), to see why he had stopped. When I looked in front of the truck, I saw a skunk digging for something in the path in front of the blinds! So, I cautiously approached it on foot, making non-threatening shushing sounds. Its tail went up!!! I backed off!!! Then it slowly walked over behind the main blind. I circled around to the other side of the blind, making more shushing sounds and taking pictures, before it finally decided to amble off into the woods, without taking a stink shot at us. Disaster averted, we set up our gear and were in our blinds ready to go at 7:10 am.

For the first hour and a half, all kinds of birds were moving South, with many of the shins just blasting past us without even dipping a wing. Our first bird of the day was a young male shin that didn't hit the nets until 8:48. At 9:05, we had a shin bounce out and a minute later we caught a young female shin. We caught 4 more young shins in rapid succession and then at 10:22, we got another double of shins, a young male and a young female! We banded them and Trudi released them together.

We started catching young shins every few minutes with only 3 more bounce outs. We had fun by releasing some for slow motion movies, some in group releases, and hypnotizing a few in various positions. Hypnotizing them does not harm them in any way. We place them on their backs and quickly stick a hand in front of them, a couple inches from their faces. They focus on the hand as it slowly pulls away and then they just lay there until we clap our hands, when they roll over and take off. We noticed that when they are in the inverted position for a few seconds, parasites like lice and blood sucking hippoboscid flies leave them, thinking the host is dead, so that's a good thing. We ended up catching 20 birds, all shins, by 12:30 pm! After that, we packed up and left for home, one hundred and fifty miles away.

We got a total of 20 birds and 3 bounce-outs on Monday.

20 Sharp-shinned hawks

37 total birds for the weekend.

41 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

01. Trudi, Nancy, Rick, and Chuck all masked while setting up the nets and extra blind for social distancing.