Fifth Weekend of Banding 2022

 
Hello Everyone, 

This is my fifth report of the 2022 banding season, covering the weekend of October 1st, 2022.

Saturday, October 1st

Trudi and I arrived at Hawk Harbor around 8:45 am Saturday morning. We noticed that Eric, a falconer friend from the Twin Cities, was already in the falconers' spot and set up when we drove by. Rick was waiting for us as we pulled into the camping area at Hawk Harbor. Nancy and Chuck said they would be there around noon and Todd could not be up due to some construction work going on at his house. So, we loaded up Rick's truck and headed out to the banding blind. We got the blind and nets all set and were ready to start banding at 10:00 am. Winds were strong and gusty out of the east-north-east with heavy cloud cover.

There should be some kind of phrase for raptor migration on the North Shore when strong winds are out of the east, similar to the sailors' idiom, "Red sky in morning, sailor take warning!". Maybe something like, "East winds on the shore means the hawks will not soar!" That was certainly the situation this weekend. We saw a few eagles, shins, and harriers, with a couple merlins zinging by just to give us hope, but NOPE!, NADA!, nothing in the nets. A Blue jay, out eating corn I had put out in front of the blind as an offering to the migration gods, jumped up and flew into the front net, but squeezed right through it, and then as if to show off, shot right through the back net as well! That was the only action we had all day on Saturday, so we closed down at 4:30, and went in to the Culver's in Two Harbors for supper. On the way back to Hawk Harbor, we stopped by Stony Point to watch the huge waves crashing on the rocks.

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

Skunked!

Sunday, October 2nd

The rain that was predicted for that night never came, so we got up, had some hot chocolate, and went back up to the banding blind. We were set up and got started at 8:00 am. The winds were not as strong as yesterday, and the rain was supposed to hold off until noon, so we settled in to see if anything was moving. At 8:25, we had a lone adult female shin spot us from a high soar off to the north. It looked very serious about our set and made a beautiful stoop from almost straight up, but went over the top of the nets! Then it sat in the trees near the blind and made five more passes, each time taking a stand in the trees near us until it finally hit the back net, bounced out, and took off! ARRRRRRGH!!!

We saw a couple eagles, some vultures and lots of crows and ravens, but nothing else that might want to come in. We closed down at 10:30 to avoid getting rained on, and packed our gear back into our cars for the trip home. Just before we left, I took the riding mower over to the east side of our land, where we had just put in a field access ramp, and I mowed an area for parking or setting up tents. The rain started just as I finished.

We got a total of no birds and one bounce-out on Sunday.

Skunked Again!!!

0 total birds for the weekend.

Still only 41 birds total for the season.

Please help hawks by supporting:

Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory ( https://www.hawkridge.org/ )

Midwest Peregrine Society ( https://midwestperegrine.umn.edu/ )

National Eagle Center ( https://www.nationaleaglecenter.org/ )

Raptor Resource Project ( https://www.raptorresource.org/ )

The Raptor Center ( https://raptor.umn.edu/ )

Twin Cities Metro Osprey Watch ( http://ospreywatch.blogspot.com/ )

Keep your eyes on the skies!

Trudi and Frank Taylor

01. Frank turning his back on the strong east winds that
caused the beautiful waves crashing on the rocks at Stony Point.
Photo by Trudi Taylor

02. Lots of big waves coming in!
Photo by Trudi Taylor

03. Some waves shot water high into the air.
Photo by Trudi Taylor

04. Our new parking/tenting area I cleared on the east side of our property.
Photo by Trudi Taylor

05. I had to include at least one hawk picture.
So, here is a recent digital rendering of a female American Kestrel
that I did from photos I took last weekend.