PILI

Looking particularly evil


Below an owl in a net I found a dead mouse with seeds in its mouth which the owl must have been carrying when it got caught. This owl then latched on to the mouse after banding.


Pileated woodpecker. Dino-like, with a piercing cry and scrawny neck.


After seeing no birds for four hours we finally got this male goshawk.

SY

Here's a great example of what we look for when aging birds. The rufous/brown tips of those two feathers indicate that they are immature feathers that have not yet been molted, telling us it's a second year bird.

Peregrine

Before the night of owls we again had a pretty slow day with hawks, catching only four. However, one of these was a peregrine falcon and I was the only one around when it came and I got it, phew! Generally catching zero to two of these per year, the station has only trapped a total of 71 in the 38 years of banding, so it was certainly a rush seeing the bird come in, knowing it was a special one to get.







Also, here's the first adult cooper's hawk we've caught:

Swets

Despite what looked to be poor weather for owls, we caught 33 saw whets throughout the night. While I generally try to get to sleep around 10 or so, this being the first really active night for the owls I couldn't stay away and found myself pulling them out of the nets until about 4am. When I finally got to bed we were well into our first frost of the season, crawling into my 27 degree sleeping bag...









Irresistible

Wet

It's been wet here. Not as wet as it could be, like it is at Carleton right now, but I still had a wet pillow when I went to bed last night.

I want to readdress something here:

The loss of habitat I mentioned in an earlier post is most significantly influencing the neotropical passerine birds that live in those affected areas. These birds are the primary source of food for most diurnal raptors, so as the passerine population plummets, so does the sharp shinned, cooper's hawk, etc.

Rain day

Rainy here probably through tomorrow morning.

We had an owl with a sprained wing so we kept it over night until it got better. Usually we try to let them go at night if we keep them, but this one was ready sooner than expected and escaped.


Brown creeper


We color marked the two adults who have been busy making a new dove, the one is "red head."

Red eye

We've started up with owls full time now, so the station is fully functional for 24 hrs a day. We've been averaging about three saw whets a night but I have yet to take any presentable pictures of them yet, the red eye effect is hard to avoid with owls. Weird, right?

On the sharp shinned side of things it looks like we may have hit our peak already. The number of birds we catch is greatly dependent on the weather, but despite what seems to have been decent winds the birds still do not seem to be flying. Some of the reduced numbers that the station has been experiencing in the past 5 years is weather related, some of it is a function of another bander about one mile upstream of us. But what is probably the greatest influence is simply the loss of suitable habitat in the north which results in poor breeding seasons and a great reduction in total populations. It's sad and Fud definitively stated last night that "the good old days are gone." In the heyday of trapping in the 70s and 80s this station would have the occasional 300 bird day, ending the season with two to four thousand shins. In 2007 they had three days of 100+ birds, but since the bander upstream moved even closer after that year, breaching 100 is somewhat of a feat. While the 650+ birds we have caught so far have all been extraordinary, the prospect of many more birds leaves me desiring the experience that Fud and many of the visitors we have gained when global warming did not have such an obvious effect on environment.

As September comes to an end here we will be seeing more and more adult shins, with the adult males arriving soon. As this is happening we will also been seeing an influx of red tailed, northern goshawks, and rough legged hawks. While the numbers we catch will not be as great, these birds are BIG (comparatively at least) and should be a thrill.

Here's a ASY female shin. Very blood red eyes:

Hawk weekend

This past weekend was "Hawk Weekend" up at the ridge, which basically means that tons of people come to hear talks and stare into the sky. I promptly left for the cities for the evening, missing most of the "fun." Slow goin' otherwise, but we're starting to catch more adult shins, which can be interesting. From their molts we're able to distinguish between hatch year (HY), second year (SY), and after second year (ASY) birds.

Here's an SY bird



An immature male american redstart recovering from a stressful bout in the nets

aRT

Caught our first red tail today. I missed it coming in, as I was asleep, but it was still a very cool bird.

Sweat

Here's a video I forgot to put up earlier. It's one of our saw whet owls (saw whet=swhet=sweat) taking a look at the stars for a while after being banded. Fud said that he's never seen one do this for as long as it did, but we figure it's trying to figure out where the hell it is.

99 problems

We've been having some great days recently and have just about doubled the number of hawks they caught in total here last year (which basically just tells you how bad last year was, but still...). We had 99 birds today (93 shins, 1 goshawk, 4 kestrels, 1 broadwing) and 74 yesterday (73 shins, 1 kestrel). Patrick got a chance to come up for the night and got a great look at the way the station functions on a good shin day. The day was looking slow at first, but after catching a few it picked up and while I was taking birds out of the nets he was able to do some trapping on his own, catching our only kestrel of the day yesterday.

BROADwing:


Nictitating membrane on the broadwing:


Male kestrel:




Female goshawk:

Our only significant bird from yesterday. I had to chase it down. Cooper's.

Fuzzier

We hit our daily high today with 44 so far. Yesterday was a good day as well, with our first northern harrier caught:

Good days

The last two days we hit 30 and 32 birds, today we had 7... It was a good rush while it lasted and showed the potential of what it may be like if we get this good weather in 2 or 3 weeks.

Red backed vole


Adult shin




Our first broad winged hawk of the year


Terrible red eye on our first saw whet owl


Kestrel

Wind tomorrow

It's been slowish but I've had some visitors and that's always a pleasure. Possible NW winds up to 30mph tomorrow, would be great.

Our second Cooper's hawk of the year. Basically the same as a sharp shin but bigger, with a longer neck and more square head.




Rose-breasted grosbeak