North Shore Banding - Frank Taylor

Monday, September 28, 2026

Fourth Weekend of Banding 2026

Hello All,

This is my fourth report of the 2026 banding season, covering the weekend of September 25th, 2026.

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

Rick and I met up at Hawk Harbor Thursday afternoon thinking we would get the nets set up that evening. A constant drizzle caused us to change our minds and instead, we drove in to Two Harbors for a nice dry supper at Culvers.

Friday, September 25th

Friday morning we loaded up the banding gear in Rick‘s truck and went out to the banding station. We got everything all set up and ready to start at 7:30 am. The rain from the night before had stopped, but the winds were predicted to be light out of the east-north-east or east! Not good for migration at our site.

We sat there looking at an empty sky for 3 hours without seeing a hawk. At 10:30 am we spotted a shin that was circling up over the trees north of us. Rick worked the lure and it came right in. Our first bird of the day was a young male Sharp-shinned hawk. All day long we saw a few shins coming over the blind, but they just kept on going past. We saw some eagles and lots of ravens, but not many other hawks.

A couple more hours passed without any takers until we saw a male American Kestrel come stooping into the field from the north. It was going for the fake owl! Once it realized its mistake, it saw the lure and decided to take a shot at that instead. That was the only other bird we banded that day, so we closed down at 3:30 pm and headed back down to Hawk Harbor.

Mattie and his dad Glen were trapping farther up the shore at Mattie‘s site and had brought their new camper trailer to Hawk Harbor for the weekend. Curt was also up at his trapping site and had Amber and Brynn there to help him. Mattie stopped by the grocery store on his way back from his site and had picked up some food to treat us all to a cookout. We got a nice campfire going and roasted some brats and hot dogs. Thanks, Mattie and Glen!!!

We got a total of 2 birds and had no bounce-outs on Friday.

1 Sharp-shinned hawk, and 1 American Kestrel.

Saturday, September 26th

What can I say, we knew we had had too much good luck a couple weeks before when we broke all our records for birds banded in one day (50). The other side of the luck pendulum came back to hit us on Saturday! Brynn joined Rick and me and we sat in the blind scanning the skies for birds from 7:00 am to 4:30 pm that evening with no birds banded, with not even a bounce out! And, just to poke fun at us, nature sent a Blue Jay into our net at 7:50 am. A Totally Skunked Day!!! Things were so dead that day that a Turkey vulture came by and circled over us to see if we were dead as well.

We got a total of 0 birds and had no bounce-outs on Saturday.

A Skunked Day!

2 total birds for the weekend.

133 total birds for the season.

Rick and I stayed over at Hawk Harbor on Saturday night and then went in for breakfast at Judy’s Café Sunday morning. Rick bought my breakfast as it was my 77^th birthday that day. When I got home, Trudi and I celebrated by going out for dinner at one of our favorite places.

(All birds are humanely captured, banded, and immediately 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. An adult Sharp-shinned hawk came in for a look.

02. A young Sharp-shinned hawk was our first bird of the day.

03. A young male Sharp-shinned hawk.

04. He had a huge full crop and still came in!

05. Rick and Frank holding the shin.

06. Rick releasing the shin.

07. A male American Kestrel.

08. An American Kestrel coming in.

09. Rick taking the kestrel out of the net.

10. A male American Kestrel.

11. Frank banding the kestrel.

12. A male American Kestrel.

13. Frank holding the kestrel.

14. Frank releasing the kestrel.

15. A campfire at Hawk Harbor.
Photo by Rick Dupont

16. Mattie brought food for the cookout.

17. Our fake owl checking out the sunrise.

18. A couple of shins came by, but none of them hit the net that day.

19. Lots of Blue Jays still coming through.

20. One Blue Jay accidentally hit the net.

21. Brynn releasing the Blue Jay.

22. Things were so dead that day that the vultures started circling!

Monday, September 21, 2026

3rd Weekend of Banding 2026

Hello All,

This is my third report of the 2026 banding season, covering the weekend of September 19th, 2026.

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

Rick went up to Hawk Harbor Friday afternoon to get the nets set up and ready for Saturday morning. I was helping Trudi do her monthly sing-a-long for the seniors and did not get up there until later that evening. Trudi didn’t go up as she had weekend commitments at home. Brynn was still driving home from a job site way up north.

Saturday, September 19th

The weather looked bad for migration, but great for tourism on the North Shore. It was a nice sunny day, but the winds were coming out of the east-north-east. We loaded our gear into the back of Rick’s truck and went out to the blind. We were set up and ready to go at 7:30 am.

Our first bird of the day was a Sharp-shinned hawk that was out hunting in the line of bushes that run across the middle of the field. When it popped up and over to our side of the bushes, Rick pulled the lure and it shot straight in and hit the front net at 8:17 am. Yeay! We are not skunked today! We caught another shin at 9:00 am that was doing the same thing. Each morning when we start at the banding station, I always throw a little bird seed out in the field as an offering to the banding gods for good luck. (Kind of like a sailor does with rum to appease Neptune). Thousands of Blue Jays were migrating over the blind, and it didn’t take long for them to notice the bird seed. A small group of them were gobbling down the seeds out front, when a little male shin came blasting out of the woods after them. What a gutsy little devil! A Blue Jay is bigger than he is! Well, he missed them all and when Rick gave him another option with the lure, he zipped right into the net!

Around 10:00 am, we began seeing Broad-winged hawks and Redtails starting to soar. At 10:15 am, we had a redtail come over us at a pretty good height and when we thought it had passed over, it stooped straight down into the nets. A litte while later, a Merlin that no one saw coming in, hit the net! Our first Merlin of the day! While we were banding the Merlin, a Blue Jay that was out eating the free seed took a short cut into the woods but ended up in our net! After we released the Blue Jay, Bill Tefft from Ely, MN stopped by. He was heading to Duluth to do some field guiding for a group attending Happy Hawk Weekend 2026 at Hawk Ridge. Bill had just settled into the blind when we saw a Merlin out in the field. Rick worked the lure and it came shooting in! Bill got to release that one. For some unknown reason, three more Blue Jays took turns flying into our net! We caught 2 more shins before things got so slow that we decided to close down at 3:00 pm.

We got a total of 7 birds and had no bounce-outs on Saturday.

4 Sharp-shinned hawks, 2 Merlins, and 1 Red-tailed hawk.

Sunday, September 20th

Sunday morning we headed back out to the blind and were ready to start at 7:20 am. The winds were still out of the east-north-east and predicted to get stonger as the day went on. We caught three shins by 8:30 am, and then things really slowed down. We had one more Red-tailed hawk make a nice stoop all the way from out over the farm. At the last second it pulled up into the tree over the blind and then took off. A little while later Bill brought up his group from Hawk Ridge. I gave them a tour of the banding station, told them the history of our operation, and then handed out my art prints to everyone. We watched a few hawks go over while the group was there and then they continued on their way. The winds became so strong that the nets were getting blown down, so we closed down at 11:00 am.

We got a total of 3 birds and had no bounce-outs on Sunday.

3 Sharp-shinned hawks.

10 total birds for the weekend.

131 total birds for the season. (One other bird banded during the week).

Later that day I drove up to Hawk Ridge and met lots of good friends. I decided to stay over Sunday night at Hawk Harbor to avoid the weekend traffic heading back to the Twin Cities. So, that evening, I drove to Two Harbors to get a sandwich and sit at the park in Agate Bay. I drove home Monday morning.