Fourth Weekend of Banding 2021

Hello Everyone,

This is my fourth report of the 2021 banding season, covering the weekend of September 25th, 2021.

Friday morning I drove up to Hawk Harbor to meet with Michelle Cook and her Saw-Whet Owl banding team. We tromped through our 14 acres of woods to find the best area to place their nets. They set up later that night and caught 6 owls. I stopped in as they were banding some of those owls and got to let one go. The next night they caught 7 owls before taking down the nets and heading for home. It was really fun seeing how a night-time owl banding operation works. The whole team was very dedicated and proficient.

Saturday, September 25th

Rick had come up Friday afternoon and stayed at Hawk Harbor. Nancy and Chuck arrived Saturday morning around 8:00 am. Trudi stayed home this weekend to help our son Tony with his kitchen renovation. So, the four of us loaded up the banding gear and headed out to the main blind. Skies were partly cloudy and there was a slight Southwest wind. We started at 8:30.

Our first bird of the weekend was a young female Sharp-shinned hawk that came in at 8:57. We banded it and I took it back down to Hawk Harbor where my brother Dan and his family were camping. His 4-year old granddaughter was very excited to release it.

We caught 12 more shins before a young male Merlin came blasting in from the fake owl. While we were catching all those shins and the Merlin, Linda and Rod, two members of Michelle's owl banding team, came up to see us. They got to release a bunch of shins and Linda released the Merlin.

That afternoon Alisha, affectionately nicknamed "Owlisha," came up to join us. We caught seven more shins before an adult Cooper's hawk shot in from the South, went in between the nets, and got caught in the back of the front net.

A little later that afternoon, Bruce Gilbertson and his son's family came by. We caught 5 more shins before we had our first bounce out of the day, another shin. One more shin came in before we closed down at 4:30.

We got a total of 28 birds and 1 bounce-out on Saturday.

26 Sharp-shinned hawks, 1 Merlin, and 1 Cooper's hawk.

Sunday, September 26th

I fixed hot chocolate and put out some donuts for the team. We packed up our gear and were back up at the blind, ready to go, at 7:45. Skies were clear with variable winds switching around to the Southwest.

Our first bird of the day was a young male Merlin that shot into the field and took a couple passes at the fake owl. Rick started luring and it came right in.

Our next 14 birds were all sharp-shinned hawks. Owlisha stayed over after the rest of the owl team had gone home and came up for a second day of banding. At 11:42, we were all looking towards the North at some shins that looked interested when, WHOOOSH, a young male peregrine came in hot from the South. When we pulled it out of the net, we could see that it was already banded by someone else! We recorded the band number, took a bunch of photos, and Owlisha released it.

We caught 4 more shins and then had another one bounce out. We caught one more shin after the bounce out and then they stopped coming over. We closed down at 1:45.

We got a total of 20 birds and 2 bounce-outs on Sunday.

18 Sharp-shinned hawks, 1 Merlin and 1 Peregrine falcon.

48 total birds for the weekend.

155 total birds for the season.

Please help hawks by supporting:

Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory, Midwest Peregrine Society, National Eagle Center,

Raptor Resource Project, The Raptor Center, and Twin Cities Metro Osprey Watch

Keep your eyes on the skies!

Trudi & Frank Taylor