Hawk Ridge News - November 2023

 Dear Hawk Ridge Friends,

 

November is always a special month to reflect on all the wonderful people that put Hawk Ridge into action during the fall - we had an amazing crew of staff and volunteers that we're so grateful for. Thanks to your support, we were able to continue sharing in the magic and beauty of the fall bird migration at Hawk Ridge Nature Reserve with visitors of all ages, abilities, and from throughout the world. We appreciate each and every one of you! Our bird migration count and raptor banding research continues through November 30th. Over 270,000 birds have been counted so far, including over 41,500 raptors of 18 species. You can also check out the live bird migration count totals on Trektellen HERE and HawkCount HERE. Find out more in our October research & education summary reports below! 

P.S. If you missed our last e-newsletter featuring our September bird migration count and raptor banding summaries, you can view that and older versions by clicking HERE. Keep up with recent news by following us on Facebook and Instagram. 

 

Give to the Max for Hawk Ridge!

NOW through Thursday, November 16th

 

The annual MN Nonprofit Giving Day - Give to the Max is HERE! As we're enjoying the beauty of Golden Eagles at Hawk Ridge, you can also help us win a $500 Golden Ticket! Any gift is eligible and Golden tickets will be awarded every 15 minutes all day long on Thurs. Nov. 16th. Please help us meet our goal of $7000 on this special giving day! 

You can easily make your gift online by visiting GiveMN.org and searching for "Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory" or by simply clicking HERE to Give to the Max in support of Hawk Ridge! We truly appreciate your support and invite you to enjoy the Golden Eagles and other raptors at Hawk Ridge now through November 30th!   

October Bird Migration Count Summary

Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory (HRBO): Migration Count Overview (October 2023) The Fall 2023 migration count at Hawk Ridge continued through October with a total of 303.6 count hours over 31 consecutive days by the end of the month. This was the second highest October hourly total for count hours ever recorded during the fall count (High being October 2000 = 305.75 count hours). A total of 20,531 raptors across 17 different species were documented from the platform during the month. 

The most abundant raptor species counted were: SHARP-SHINNED HAWK (8,207), RED-TAILED HAWK (4,231), BROAD-WINGED HAWK (3,506), BALD EAGLE (1,740), TURKEY VULTURE (1,726). The following species had above-average October count totals: TURKEY VULTURE, OSPREY, NORTHERN HARRIER, SHARP-SHINNED HAWK, BROAD-WINGED HAWK, AMERICAN KESTREL, and PEREGRINE FALCON. The following species had below-average October count totals: BALD EAGLE, COOPER'S HAWK, AMERICAN GOSHAWK, RED-TAILED HAWK, GOLDEN EAGLE, and MERLIN. 

This month recorded HRBO site high record October totals for: BROAD-WINGED HAWKS, TURKEY VULTURES, and PEREGRINE FALCONS (86), meaning the highest October totals ever documented for each species. The delay in both Broad-winged and Turkey Vulture southward movement could have been related to several weeks of poor weather/wind conditions in September earlier this year. If migrant raptors remained held up at northern latitudes, their later passage along the Ridge into October could have been a result when, historically, migrant Broad-winged Hawks are documented in September (For reference, this past September experienced one of the lowest Broad-winged Hawk monthly totals ever recorded at HRBO for October). 

The large October Peregrine flight during the first week of the month was also really impressive! The two back-to-back days (Oct 3 and 4) brought 46 migrant Peregrines combined - absolutely incredible to witness from the Ridge. The first day (Oct 3) Peregrine Falcon day count total of 25 birds tied the second highest HRBO site day count record for this species (Tied with September 19, 2019). 

Additionally, the October BROAD-WINGED HAWK movement was an atypical spectacle to witness. Typical fall migration patterns have nearly all migrant Broad-winged Hawks passing HRBO by mid-to-late September, so to stand and witness kettles totaling 2,542 on 10/4 (which included one DARK-MORPH BROAD-WING!) felt special. The month also brought an adult RED-SHOULDERED HAWK close along the west side of the Ridge on 10/27 during a large buteo and eagle flight, and three SHORT-EARED OWLS (10/8, 10/18, 10/29) both along the Ridge directly overhead and down the shore. 

The non-raptor flight along the Ridge gained momentum over October, with 91 non-raptor migrant bird species documented. The most abundant non-raptor species documented throughout the month were: AMERICAN ROBIN (19,932), AMERICAN CROW (7,665), RUSTY BLACKBIRD (7,408), PINE SISKIN (6,717), PURPLE FINCH (5,684), UNIDENTIFIED WARBLER SPECIES (5,196), COMMON GRACKLE (3,778), YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER (3,446), CANADA GOOSE (3,276), BLUE JAY (1,275).

Other non-raptor migrant highlights from the month include: A late male BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLER during morning flight and first HARRIS'S SPARROW of the fall at the feeders on 10/2, Large RUSTY BLACKBIRD (4,107) and AMERICAN ROBIN (5,277) movement down the shore on 10/6 during morning flight, HRBO site day record for SANDHILL CRANES (1,132) on 10/7, First BOREAL CHICKADEE of the fall on 10/8, First BOHEMIAN WAXWING of the fall on 10/10, Big migrant AMERICAN CROW movement (1,159) down the shore on 10/12, late CHIMNEY SWIFT on 10/16, late EASTERN PHOEBE passing along the Ridge on 10/31, seven migrant BLACK-BACKED WOODPECKERS throughout the month, and two TOWNSEND'S SOLITAIRES (10/15 and 10/16 - possibly the same bird).

To view all species (raptor and non-raptor) totals for the Fall 2023 migration count at Hawk Ridge, visit: https://www.trektellen.org/site/totals/3670/2023

By Jess Cosentino

Lead Counter

October Raptor Banding Summary

After a rather anticlimactic end to September, October started out strong with some of our busiest days of the season in the first week. However, the theme of the season was still poor weather, and we were plagued with a long stretch of just one to two birds a day in mid-October. The last week of the month picked up significantly, however, with a solid flight of Red-tailed Hawks and nice looks at typical late-season birds like Rough-legged Hawks and Golden Eagles. American Goshawk numbers have been extremely low this season, with only 6 banded in October and 7 for the season to date (compared to the 12-year average of 88.4 per season). These low numbers are hopefully indicative of a high prey density in the breeding range resulting in birds not needing to move far in search of food, rather than a decline in overall numbers. Most of the month of October was quite warm and wet, which did not promote strong movement of hungry birds. 

Despite the lower numbers for the month, we put in a valiant effort with three stations covered a total of 62 days. The Hawk Ridge and Moose Valley stations were covered primarily by Abbie Valine and Kara Beer, respectively, while Frank Nicoletti ran Paine Farm as well as relief days at Hawk Ridge. Banding apprentices Liv Fortuna and Doris Rodriguez made excellent progress throughout the month refining their banding and trapping skills, while trainees Megan Hanson, Marie Chappell, and Sarah Needles solidified the basics of raptor handling and banding. 

The biggest highlight of the month was a juvenile Swainson’s Hawk banded at Moose Valley—only the 5th one banded in 51 years, and the first since 2016. Other highlights included a juvenile male Bald Eagle captured at Moose Valley, and a new daily record of 16 Northern Harriers captured at the Hawk Ridge station.

 

October Raptor Banding Totals: 

Northern Harrier – 30 

Sharp-shinned Hawk – 427 

Cooper’s Hawk – 8 

American Goshawk – 6 

Swainson’s Hawk – 1 

Red-tailed Hawk – 60 

American Kestrel – 4 

Merlin – 17 

Peregrine Falcon – 5 

Bald Eagle – 1 

Northern Shrike – 3 

Total – 562

By Abbie Valine

Lead Bander

October Owl Banding Summary

Hoot-hoot everyone! For the second half of the Hawk Ridge fall owl banding season, the banders were able to run mist-nets for 13 nights from October 16 to November 10. Snow, rain, high wind speeds slowed down banding operations for a few nights, but our resilient banders put on extra layers to stay warm and their extraction skills remained sharp, as they removed thousands of leaves from their nets. 

Migration certainly slowed for Northern Saw-whet Owls (NSWO) during the second half of the season. 185 NSWO were banded and 5 Saw-whet’s that already had a band were processed. The final big push of the season brought 45 Saw-whet’s to our station on October 20th. This may seem low compared to our big night of the season that consisted of 150 plus Saw-whet’s during the night of October 7th. But it served as a nice farewell to the high Saw- whet movement. On October 28th apprentice Sarah had the honor of banding a celebrity Saw-whet—the 1000th NSWO of the season. This was a major milestone for the season since this number had not been reached since 2020. 

Saw-whet Owl Numbers (Oct. 16-Nov. 10)

Sex: Male 2, Female 143, Unknown 40 

Age: Hatch Year 100, Second Year 31, After Hatch Year 36 

Our previous owl banding update highlighted the charismatic Saw-whet Owls, but the spotlight of the second half shifted to the Long-eared Owls (LEOW). We had steady LEOW numbers during the first half of the season and twenty seven individuals were banded by October 15. Owl banders had three big LEOW nights. The first of these three nights happened during the morning of October 22. By 1:00 am, banders had only caught one single Saw-whet owl. At 1:15 am they caught a Long-eared owl. Three more LEOW’s were caught during the next net check. As our owl bander was in the process of releasing the banded owls, he almost looked as shocked as Long-eared Owls look when he noticed that eight more LEOW were caught in the nets. What a time! He was able to extract all eight individuals thanks to the support of two of our dedicated volunteers. By end of the night they ended up banding thirteen Long-eared Owls. 

Our next big Long-eared night took place on November 3rd. We ended up banding twenty LEOW. Fifteen of these were caught from 8:00 pm to 11:30 pm. The remaining five came in from 1:00 am to 5:00 am. One LEOW per hour. This night was not only special because we ended up banding 20 LEOW (our season high), but also because we banded our 75th LEOW of the season. But After Second Year 17 Unknown Age 1 what truly made this night special was that we had our full banding team including our Lead bander Abbie, our diurnal bander Kara and our banding apprentices Doris and Liv. We wouldn’t have banded as many LEOW without their support. 

On the night of November 7 we caught eleven more LEOW. Prior to this night we had a total of 95 LEOW. We knew this was going to the be the night we made it to 100. Fortunately everything lined up; weather, flight and the 100th Long-eared of the season was caught at 2:15 am. A great milestone for the season. 

Long-eared Owl Numbers (Oct 16-Nov 10) 

Sex: Male 30, Female 55, Unknown 7 

Age: HY 11, AHY 45, ASY 23, Unknown 13

By Kevin Garcia Lopez

Owl Bander

 

October Education Summary

Another fall education season has quickly flown by. A few hints of snow, but nothing too serious this year, just enough to remind us that winter is truly coming. Plenty of activity going on at the overlook during October. For school and private programming September is just a warm up for the main attraction in October. This October we had 60 school and private program groups during Monday through Fridays at the Ridge (compared to 21 school and private programs in September), an additional 28 general public programs over the weekends, 6 owl programs, and 48 visiting birds from the banding stations for demonstrations and public releases, totaling about 142 programs with more than 3100 participants! And a good time was had by all! 

On October 14th, we celebrated World Migratory Bird day with a cooperative venture of area groups working to make birding accessible to all by celebrating our 4th Everyone Can Bird day at Hawk Ridge with our largest turnout so far with about 35 who came for the morning programming and migration tracking. Thanks to the Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR), Friends of the Lake Superior NERR, Minnesota Land Trust, Wisconsin Sea Grant, and Embark, and our ASL interpreters for teaming up with Hawk Ridge for this event! The 14th was also our fall Duluth Community Day Celebration and we recorded a total of 293 visitors through the course of the day celebrating Duluth and fall migration.

Thanks to Bob Rosenfeld, for baling out our Oct. 21 Owl program with his captive Great Horned Owl (a non-releasable bird with eyesight issues). The rain that day was supposed to quit, first by noon, then by 3, but was still going strong at 6, when we opted for plan B an indoor Owl Public Owl Program at the Limnology Lab. Another Lake Superior special day- that’s what I call it when the big lake makes weather hang on longer than it should! Of course we weren’t able to have any guests from our Hawk Ridge Owl banding station, but were so lucky to have Bob and his Great Horned Owl to fill in the live owl component for the program! It was truly a night not to be missed, and we all learned an amazing amount about owls and Great Horned Owls in particular. Thanks so much to Bob Rosenfeld, retired professor from University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, and his owl for making the rainy day owl program a smashing success!

The end of the formal education season at Hawk Ridge traditionally is always Halloween day, October 31st. Which unfortunately I missed this year with the excuse of being in Costa Rica with the Hawk Ridge tour observing the migration there- which was amazing!! But back to the Halloween festivities- I was provided with a great summary of the wide range of costumes that appeared to celebrate this last day of the season. Included in the staff entourage were: A flock of migrating birds flying through blue skies and clouds, A festive Halloween pin model, A female Sharp-shinned Hawk in a Pringles can being transported for demonstration purposes, a Shark, A butterfly and its caterpillar (still trying to figure out how we had both at the same time!) An Angry Bird, A Kingfisher, An adult male Grey Ghost Northern Harrier, A mist net full of captured birds for banding, A fancy Ketchup package, A discology of Taylor Swift, A Hawk- still working on speciation for this one, a Grey Catbird, and Last but not least all the way from Africa, a Secretary Bird! Thank you Tania for sharing the fun long distance! Not all of the amazing education and operation staff are represented in this great photo- but I can’t put the season to bed without expressing how grateful we are for such an incredible group of staff and volunteers to share the wonder of the wonder of the fall migration with our visitors! 

A quick summary of the fall season is also in order here to put the whole education season in perspective for the fall. Sept. and October program numbers combined indicate that we provided more than 311 formal education opportunities to about 7,400 participants! It was an amazing and busy season!!

By Margie Menzies

Education Director

Fall Raffle at the Ridge

We held our annual fall Raptors Raffle at Hawk Ridge Nature Reserve this October with drawing on October 31st. Thank you to all that purchased tickets in support of our bird research and education programs at Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory! Congratulations to the following raffle winners:  

1) Vortex Viper HD 8x42 Binoculars (winner: Ralph Larsen, Duluth, MN)

2) Guided Winter Birding Daytrip for 2 with Frank Nicoletti (winner: Carissa Scanlan, St. Paul, MN)

3) $100 Gift Certificate for Merchandise from the Hawk Ridge gift shop (winner: Jeanne Wright, Chippewa Falls, WI). 

International Birding Trip Update 

Ecuador - Birding the Choco-Andes Region

February 25th - March 5th, 2024 

(Trip is FULL - watch for our next trip in summer or fall 2024!) 

Please contact Hawk Ridge Education Director, Margie Menzies, mmenzies@hawkridge.org with future birding trip ideas and to be first on the list to know!

Hawk Migration Association of North America

50th Anniversary Conference in Duluth, MN

SAVE THE DATE! November 7-10, 2024

Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory is happy to announce that the Hawk Migration Association of North America (HMANA) is holding their 50th anniversary conference here in Duluth, MN next year in Nov. 2024! Hawk Ridge is helping host and will keep you posted on details. You can check out the conference link HERE! 

 

Thank You for Your Support!

Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory thanks all of our supporters. We appreciate you! As a nonprofit organization, we are primarily funded by individual gifts to put our bird migration research and education programs in action. Below are some of the ways you can help us keep sharing the magic of the bird migration!

Support Hawk Ridge by Shopping!

 

Thank you for the wonderful support by shopping at our fall season gift shop this Sept/Oct. If there was an item you were hoping for, please check out our online shopping options below with some of our merchandise or contact jlong@hawkridge.org. 

Big Frog (direct ship or pick up at Duluth store)

Bonfire (direct ship)

The Mug Experience (direct ship)

Thank you Whole Foods Co-Op Duluth!

A special thanks to Duluth Whole Foods Co-Op and members for the Community Giving round-up program in support of Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory! As the September recipient and through your generosity, we received over $5,500 in round-up donations! P.S. If you know of other businesses that have special ways to support nonprofits, like Hawk Ridge, please let us know by sending an email to jlong@hawkridge.org. Thank you! 

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!

 

Simply Donate

 

You can always simply donate online by clicking HERE or by mailing a check made out to Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory, P.O. Box 3006, Duluth, MN 55803.

Thank you again for your wonderful gift of support! Hope to connect with you soon!  

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
501(c)3 Non-Profit Organization

Federal Tax ID 76-0746366