It seems that spring can’t make up its mind. This past week we’ve had some weather days, early closures, and delayed starts due to high winds, rain, and even snow! This has resulted in some pretty slow days in the blind, but we have continued to catch birds regardless. We’ve enjoyed having visitors out to the blind and everyone has been a good sport about the slower days.
A merlin takes a break from preening after release to give us a “dirty” look. Photo courtesy of Rob McBride.
A few highlights from this past week include having our highest number of red-tailed hawks caught in one day so far this season- 11! At just about halfway through the season, we are at 60 redtails caught, which puts us on track to surpass last year’s 64 redtails. We are mostly catching juvenile redtails, as most of the adults have pushed through the straits. Nick has been sending some cool maps showing how some of the birds he put satellite trackers on are “island hopping” to get north, instead of flying directly across the strait. We also caught our first merlins of the season (2), a juvenile red-shouldered hawk, and an adult broad-winged hawk. This marked the tenth broad-winged hawk and eleventh red-shouldered hawk ever caught here at MSRW!
This adult broad-winged hawk surprised us first thing in the morning! What a great way to start the day!
This map shows one of the tagged redtails from last year using the islands to migrate north.
Our first red-shouldered hawk of the season showing the signature crescent shape in the outer primaries, a fieldmark often used on hawkwatch to identify red-shoulders from a distance. Notice how some of the wing feathers are missing and the tail feathers are very worn and broken- this bird is starting to molt in its very first set of adult feathers!
Check out the blue adult feathers coming in on this juvenile merlin’s back! Falcons have very strong personalities, often vocalizing loudly and biting while in the hand. I suspect this has to do with their relation to parrots- falcons are more closely related to parrots genetically than to other raptors due to an evolutionary phenomena called convergent evolution, where species who are not directly genetically related develop similar traits. This means that falcons are basically predatory parrots… hence the loud voices and bites, just like parrots! This little male merlin was a perfect gentleman and was very calm during banding and standardized photos. What a guy.
Season total: 98
Red-tailed hawk: 60
Sharp-shinned hawk: 28
Northern harrier: 4
Merlin: 2
Cooper’s hawk: 1
Red-shouldered hawk: 1
Broad-winged hawk: 1
Rough-legged hawk: 1