Second Weekend of Banding 2026

 Hello All, 

 

This is my second report of the 2026 banding season, covering the weekend of September 12th, 2026.

This is our 57th consecutive season of trapping raptors on the Mattson’s hay field!!!

 

Trudi and I drove up to Hawk Harbor on Thursday to do some shopping and get things ready for the Minnesota Falconers Annual Camp-in and Cook-out to be held at Hawk Harbor. Rick and Brynn came out Friday evening to get the blind ready and set up the nets. It was too late to do any banding by the time we finished. It was also Rick’s birthday, so we drove in to Do North Pizzaria in Two Harbors to celebrate!

 

Saturday, September 12th

The weather was perfect for banding with winds out of the west-north-west. Lots of Minnesota falconers were showing up for the cook-out. We loaded some people into the blind and got started at 8:00 am. Our first bird of the day was a Cooper’s hawk at 8:13 am! After that, the migration began hot and heavy! We started catching birds left and right. Way too many to list individually here. Many of the falconers came up and we kept switching people in and out of the blind to make sure everyone got a chance to see some hawks come in. We also took turns releasing hawks and everybody that came up to the blind got to release a banded hawk. Fortunately, I had set up a second net farther down the field manned by Thomas. With the extra net working, we were able to break our all time daily capture record of 37 hawks banded in one day! WE ENDED UP CATCHING 42 RAPTORS THAT DAY!!!

 

We closed down at 5:30 pm and headed down to Hawk Harbor for the Cook-out.

 

We got a total of 42 birds and had 4 bounce-outs on Saturday. 

35 Sharp-shinned hawks, 1 Cooper’s hawk, 3 Merlins, and 3 Red-tailed hawks.

 

Sunday, September 13th

Sunday promised to be another great day for banding. Trudi fixed hot chocolate and snacks for all the falconers who had camped out at Hawk Harbor for the night. Then a bunch of us made our way back up to the banding station and got started at 7:45 am. Right away we caught 3 shins in a row that were out hunting the brush-line that runs across the middle of the hay field! After that, a morning Merlin surprised us and shot in at 8:35 am! Then we caught 8 more Sharp-shinned hawks, followed by a young Broad-winged hawk! Our first broad-wing of the year! We caught 12 more shins and 2 more broad-wing hawks before catching a Northern Harrier at 12:09 pm! 9 more shins came in before we caught another broad-wing. 8 more shins were caught and then a large light colored Red-tailed hawk got caught at 3:27 pm. We caught 2 more shins and a male American Kestrel before closing down at 5:30 pm. WE ENDED UP CATCHING 50 RAPTORS THAT DAY AND BREAKING THE PREVIOUS DAY’S RECORD!!!

 

We got a total of 50 birds and had 5 bounce-outs on Sunday. 

42 Sharp-shinned hawks, 4 Broad-winged hawks, 1 Merlin, 1 American Kestrel, 1 Northern Harrier, and 1 Red-tailed hawk.

 

92 total birds for the weekend.

119 total birds for the season (One other bird banded in May). 

 

A BIG THANKS, goes out to Trudi, Rick, Brynn, and Thomas for making this such a GREAT weekend!!!

( All birds are humanely captured, banded, and 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

01. Sharp-shinned hawks dominated the weekend. We caught 77!

02. 25 People showed up for the annual Minnesota Falconer’s Cook-out.

03. Trudi did a great job setting things up.

04. A Cooper’s hawk was the first bird of the weekend.

05. The morning banding crew.

06. Maddie releasing the Cooper’s hawk.

07. A Sharp-shinned hawk

08. A young Red-tailed hawk.

09. The banding crew holding a red-tail and a shin

10. Trudi holding the shin.

11. Trudi releasing the shin.

12. Thomas releasing the red-tail.

13. A Merlin coming in.

14. A Merlin.

15. The banding crew holding a Merlin.

16. Morgan and Eli holding the Merlin.

17. Morgan and Eli releasing the Merlin.

18. A Red-tailed hawk overhead.

19. A young Red-tailed hawk.

20. Frank and the Mattsons holding the red-tail.

21. Kirk releasing the red-tail.

22. We caught a double! Two shins at once!

23. The banding crew with the two shins.

24. Amber releasing one of the shins.

25. Grant releasing the other shin.

26. The banding crew with the last shin of the day.

27. A Sunday morning sunrise.

28. Shins dominated the day, again!

29. The Sunday morning banding crew with a shin.

30. John and Aspen releasing a shin.

31. A Sunday morning Merlin.

32. Jason and his puppy releasing the Merlin.

33. A young Broad-winged hawk stooping in.

34. A young Broad-winged hawk in the tree.

35. A young Broad-winged hawk.

36. The banding crew holding the broad-wing and two shins.

37. Melissa and Phoebe holding a shin and a broad-wing.

38. A Northern Harrier.

39. The banding crew holding the harrier and a shin.

40. A shin was our 100^th bird of the season!

41. Frank, Rick, Brynn, and Trudi with our 100^th bird of the season!

42. Another young Broad-winged hawk.

43. A young, light-colored Red-tailed hawk.

44. An American Kestrel coming in.

45. A male American Kestrel.

46. Brynn banding the kestrel.

47. A male American Kestrel.

48. Thomas releasing the kestrel.

49. Two more shins finished out the weekend.

50. Stealing a kiss to celebrate the record-breaking weekend!!!