Broadwings,Eagles and Great-horned Owl!

We are rolling along...........sort of!

This past week saw the weather change , with strong Northwest Winds and cold Temps,. This made for ideal Broadwing Days on Thursday and Friday. I was able to count on the Thursday but not Friday though I was not disappointed.

Thursday started slow, but quickly picked up steam. The first Broad-wings were seen alittle after 9 am. they started as singles then small kettles of 5-10 birds and escilated to Kettles of 100's! The largest one was in excess of 400 Broadwings. What a spectacular site!

Amid the Broad-wings were the occaisional Sharp-shinned and Red-tail and also Eagles.

Yes the Eagles came in larger numbers aswell ! A total of 9 were seen during the day, 8 were Bald Eagles of varying ages and a single Golden Eagle.

This was our single largest Count day for both Broadwings and Eagles with a total of 2089 Raptors observed.

On the banding side of the Operation , It is comparibly slower than last year! Nigel has now banded 8 Hawks at Scanlon Creek and I have banded 2 at Innisfree.Nigel managed to catch a Broad-winged Hawk on Thursday amid the Chaos of Kettles!

My second was a Hatchyear male Coopers Hawk that was caught in our Swedish Goshawk Trap yesterday. It was the second bird caught in the Trap this season, the first was a Second Year Great-horned Owl caught on Friday! Nigel was the lucky person to Band it! It is our 1st GHOW that we have caught at the Station and smelled greatly of Skunk! This is there favourite meal and they are not bothered by the Spray!

Yesterday afternoon my Son Liam and I got the Owl nets setup. We are still atleast a week away from Banding NSWO, but we are atleast ready for when the time comes! Unfortunately we lost the Hydro to the Barn as is was deemed Unsafe and also to costly for the Insurance! I will try my Generator and see how cost effective and LOUD it will be !