On Saturday, October 26, the Discovery Center Bird Club went on their 35th outing for 2013. We joined in for the North Lakeland Discovery Center’s trip to Hawk Ridge Nature Reserve in Duluth, MN. While the bird club has visited Hawk Ridge in recent years, joining the Discovery Center’s program enabled a new dimension when we were treated to a behind the scenes tour of the Hawk Ridge Raptor Banding Station.
It was a real treat to be able to see how researchers entice raptors, capture them, handle them, and band them before releasing them back into the wild. Due to the size of our group we had to be split up, so one-half of us did the morning banding tour and the other half did it in the afternoon. The afternoon group was treated to having a researcher show us a captured juvenile Red-tailed Hawk, allowing the group to learn details about that bird. Later, that bird was ‘adopted’ by bird club member Peter Rasmussen, who got to hold the bird and then release it, a truly unique and special experience!
In the past, bird club field trips to Hawk Ridge have occurred in late September when we would typically be able to observe hundreds of Sharp-shinned Hawks and Broad-winged Hawks. We decided to join the Discovery Center’s late October program because a different mix of raptors typically migrate later during the migration season. As it turned out, shortly after we first arrived the group encountered cold winds and a rain/snow squall. However, bad weather only lasted for about one-half hour, the sky became partly cloudy, the winds moderated, and the raptors put on a great show. In terms of numbers, by far the most frequent flyers of the day were Red-tailed Hawks. Most of us are happy to see an occasional Red-tailed Hawk here and there over the course of a year but on Saturday we were able to observe 20 or more at one time! At the end of the day the official raptor counters recorded 251 Red-tailed Hawks.
For that day, the official counters recorded 10 species of raptors and a total count of 381 individual raptors, a very good day! The bird club was hoping to observe some new species for the year and we were rewarded for our effort. Late season specialties for Hawk Ridge include Rough-legged Hawk, Northern Goshawk, and Golden Eagle and all three made appearances for us. The latter two species were new to the club for 2013, so 2 species were added to the club’s annual list, raising our total species count for the year to 184 species of birds observed during club outings. In addition to observing raptors, other species of late season migrating birds also were observed at Hawk Ridge including Snow Buntings, American Tree Sparrows, and a Rusty Blackbird.
Group Photo and Blog submitted by Discovery Center Bird Club Member, Guy David.
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