SY RTHA

Bad pictures of this guy today, hopefully I get some better ones if I'm awake for any of the others caught this fall. Hatch year Broad-winged Hawk caught be Frank:


This second year Red-tailed Hawk was caught at one of the other trapping blinds today by Chris, making it the first adult I've see in hand. Note the older, shorter, browner feathers in the wing, making it a second year.

Comparison

I don't have much new to show, but I thought I'd put up a comparison post. A lot of these pictures are repeats but I separated them by genus and labeled them by age and sex if I knew it. We still haven't caught some varieties (like an adult male harrier) and I'm missing pictures of a few (like a female kestrel), but I thought this would give a good look at the hawks we have been catching, with side-by-side comparisons to show some differences.

Falcons:
Immature Merlin


Immature male kestrel




Immature peregrine





Accipiters:
Sharp-shinned
Two immature birds, female on the left, male on the right:


Two adults with different shades of the eyes:




Cooper's
Immature:


Adult:


Northern goshawk
Immature



Buteos
Broad-winged
Immature:


Red-tailed
Immature:
These are three different birds






Circus:
Northern harrier
Immature


Adult female

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:

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