What an exciting past few days! Don't forget we will be holding our Hawk Ridge Annual Member Meeting virtually tomorrow September 18th at 2:30pm Central Time with guest speaker following at 3pm. Joe Barnes, Nongame Wildlife State Specialist, Nevada
Department of Wildlife will present Peregrine Falcons as a Biomonitor: A
Local Study Taken to a Continental Scale. Annual meeting link with separate link for guest speaker found HERE.
We hope you can join us! Please read on for count & banding
highlights from the first 2 weeks of September! Happy Hawkwatching! 
What
a start to September for both raptors and passerines. On 9/16, we had a
great day counting season high 1,560 Sharp-shinned Hawks & 6,471
Broad-winged Hawks, as well as 1 Red-shouldered Hawk, 4 Swainson's Hawks
and 6,000+ Blue Jays! With yesterday's numbers, we are almost to 45,000
Blue Jays and over 20,000 Broadies already (9,551 Broad-winged Hawks
were also counted on 9/13). 
A
Golden Eagle was counted on Monday, September 14th, which is one of
the earliest records of one at Hawk Ridge in the last 15 years. Count
Trainee, Emma, shared this beautiful journal sketch of it! We also
counted a Mississippi Kite on September 9th, which is an exciting
species for us, as it's not one we see each season.Winds
for the most part have been very favorable blowing birds from as far as
NW Canada. Thursday, September 17th and Friday, September 18th look to
be great migration days as well. 
Over
28,000 raptors of 16 species have been counted for the season, as well
as 120+ species of over 100,000 other migrating birds. We are looking
forward to seeing what other surprises are to come! We also welcome 2
fantastic new Count Trainees this fall, Emma Regnier & Maggie Brown,
who will be learning and counting with us through the end of October!-John Richardson, Fall Count Director
Fall Raptor Banding Update (September 1-14, 2020)
A
total of 493 raptors of 8 species
were banded during the first 2 weeks of September. Northern Harrier (8),
Sharp-shinned Hawk
(431), Cooper's Hawk (7), Northern Goshawk (5), Broad-winged Hawk (3),
Red-tailed Hawk (11),
American Kestrel (10), and Merlin (18). It's been a good start to
September! We also welcome new banding staff - our awesome banding
trainees, Jessy Wilson & Halle Lambeau, and new Owl Bander, Danny
Erickson. Owl Banding started on 9/15, so we'll be sure to post updates
on that soon!
* If you missed our previous newsletter, we've include it below for more information about our research, events, and other educational resources.
It
has been a good start to the fall bird migration and we appreciate your
support. We're glad we can still be at Hawk Ridge during this amazing
annual spectacle and share our love of birds with you. Thanks to all
that have visited and cooperated with the new safety precautions in
place. This was an important step to ensure we could continue our
research, education, and stewardship efforts this fall. You can follow along with our count live each day HERE or on hawkcount.org. 
We
concluded our 7th year of the MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and
Survivorship) project on August 3rd. As is typical, the last session was
our busiest with 87 new or recaptured birds. We did get our first
migrants of the year with Tennessee and Canada Warblers showing up
during the last session. For the summer, we banded 269 new birds
including our first brown thrasher and winter wrens for the summer. As
importantly as the new birds, we had 85 birds recaptured during the MAPS
sessions. Some of these were recaptured from the same year they were
banded, but many more were returns from previous years. Our first two
recaptures were male redstarts caught at the same time in the same net.
Likely, they were chasing each other while trying to establish
territories in early June. Interestingly, each of the past two years, we
have heard and caught Golden-Winged warbler in the first sessions, but
they seem to disappear by July and we still haven’t found any breeding
in our MAPS territory. Perhaps next year we will get our first breeding
record and some young.
The fall season started
August 15th and migration is well underway. 83 species have been recorded with
11 of them been raptors. 34,000 individual birds complete the August count as
of writing, with 1,454 being raptors.
Of the raptors, BALD EAGLE (280) and BROAD-WINGED HAWK (743) have by far showed up in respectable numbers. The Broad-winged Hawk total is the highest since 1977.
Nevertheless, the number
of NORTHERN HARRIER (39) and RED-TAILED HAWK (60) is not bad for August with
the vast majority being immature birds making the maiden voyage south. Next,
SHARP-SHINNED HAWK (243) and AMERICAN KESTREL (19) have started up well before
the bulk of those that show up in September.
The weather has been
mostly warm and very dry with little rain to speak of. We had 4 days of
easterly winds with fog 19th-22nd, but then all those birds that were backed up
came through in droves. Most notably was Tuesday 25th when Common Nighthawks
came through all day and by the end of the day we had over 27,000!
There has been the early movement of RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH and PURPLE FINCH, it remains to be seen if they continue in bigger numbers as the season continues.
It looks to be another
great season at Hawk Ridge already! We welcome back Nick Pusateri, Count Trainee from 2019, now as a Counter! We are excited for the staff that will be
joining us.Their wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm about birds is sure
to make it a great time for you to come up to the Ridge this fall and enjoy
some of the best migration viewing North America has to offer!
Eyes to the skies everybody!
-John Richardson, Fall Count Director
Fall Raptor Banding Update
A total of 127 raptors of 8 species
have been banded through August 29th. Northern Harrier (4), Sharp-shinned Hawk
(83), Northern Goshawk (2), Broad-winged Hawk (2), Red-tailed Hawk (6),
American Kestrel (4), and Merlin (20). It's been a good start to the season
thus far! We welcome back Abbie Valine, Banding Trainee from 2019 and longtime volunteer, now as a Bander! We're looking forward to the rest of the great banding crew joining us soon!
We
are continuing two of our research projects again this fall in studying
exposure to two contaminants, Polyfluoralkyl substances (PFAS) and
methylmercury (Hg). These are bioaccumulative toxins, which cause
reproductive failure in birds.
We
are also happy to be working with four great master’s students at UMD
on their raptor research (Lisa Broullette, Emily Pavlovic, Allie Pesano,
and Hannah Toutonghi) - with Allie and Hannah being former Hawk
Ridge Banding Trainees! Projects
include:
· -Red-tailed Hawk genetics
· -Migration patterns of Sharp-shinned Hawks, Northern Saw-whet Owls, and Red-tailed Hawks using stable isotopes
· -Prey composition of raptors during migration
· -A study on Northern Hawk Owls
-Frank Nicoletti, Banding Director
P.S.
The In-hand Guide to Diurnal North American Raptors authored by
renowned raptor experts Jerry Liguori, Jesse Watson, Dave Oleyar, and
Frank Nicoletti is available for purchase HERE. Hawk Ridge congratulates Frank and authors on this accomplishment!
Visitor Info for Viewing the Fall
Bird Migration
We are excited for another fall bird
migration season at Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory! We are in operation
under new safety guidelines and limited staff. Visitors are still welcome
to come out and enjoy the migration. We just ask for your compliance and
understanding with safety measures in place for the health and well being
of our staff and visitors (you included!). This will be especially important at
our main overlook, which is our primary visitor viewing area. Guidelines may
also change pending regulations mandated by local, state, federal authorities.
If you are planning to visit, please read our guidelines on our Plan Your Visit
page and they will also be posted at the Hawk Ridge main overlook.
VISIT US AT HAWK RIDGE NATURE RESERVE
9AM-4PM DAILY SEPT 1 - OCT. 31ST!
Meet Our Fall 2020 Team
We have a wonderful team for fall of
2020 of both return and new. You can find out who's who HERE
on our staff page. We are all excited to share in the migration with you whether in person or virtually!
Hawk Ridge Volunteer Program
We LOVE our volunteers and appreciate all they do. Hawk
Ridge is fortunate to have so many amazing people devote time each fall
and some throughout the year in helping with our research, education,
and stewardship efforts. With our limitations in staff, programs,
visitor services and needed safety guidelines in place, we are not able
to have our regular volunteer program this fall. We hope that any of you
that were planning or hoping to start volunteering with us this season,
please reach out again next year. Current volunteers will receive
further information from us, if we haven't already connected.
New
Count Display
Last year we had a grant thanks to the Hawk Migration Association of N.A. to create a new count board and display. You may have already seen it featured on some of our Facebook posts. Thanks to the craftsmanship of Josh Yokel for building and volunteer help from David Carman and Ralph Larsen for installation!
We love our visitors, but as everyone is aware, these are exceptional times for the safety of everyone with COVID-19. We encourage visitors at Hawk Ridge Nature Reserve (on road and trails) to stay safe and keep others safe by following
physical and social distancing guidelines outdoors. The National Recreation and Park Association put together a statement HERE for safe use of parks and open spaces following guidelines set by The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Please join us after the annual meeting at 3:15pm for a virtual guest research presentation, Joe Barnes, Nongame Wildlife State Specialist, Nevada Department of Wildlife will present Peregrine Falcons as a Biomonitor: A Local Study Taken to a Continental Scale. NOTE: A separate link will be shared at the end of the annual meeting to join.
.jpg?0.7989867935476688 "Leucistic Red-tailed Hawk by John Richardson (3)")
Fall Bird Migration at Hawk Ridge Nature Reserve - September 1 - October 31, 2020
Become A Member Today!If
you're already a member of Hawk Ridge, we sincerely appreciate your
support! THANK YOU! If you're not a member and have enjoyed your
experience with Hawk Ridge, we invite you to renew or join as a Hawk Ridge member today! Our memberships and donations help drive our bird conservation research and education programs. You can check out our exciting membership benefits and join or renew online HERE!
2019 ANNUAL HIGHLIGHTS - Please click HERE to read and see how your support is helping us make a difference! Thank you!
Support Hawk Ridge by Shopping!
Purchase one of our unique artist-designed Hawk Ridge shirts or tote bags online. Two more simple ways to raise money for Hawk Ridge are by using 1) GoodShop and 2) Amazon Smile for your online shopping in support of Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory to receive proceeds.
Sincerely,
Janelle Long
Executive Director
Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory
Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory
P.O. Box 3006
Duluth, MN 55803-3006
Call: 218-428-6209
Contact: mail@hawkridge.org
Visit: www.hawkridge.org
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