Red-tailed Hawk Feedback

Tagged Red-tailed Hawk N2

Thanks everyone for enlightening me about the tagged Red-tailed Hawk. Here is Gary Searing's response posted with his permission. I know some of you registered some concern about the size of the tag but I believe it provides important information as laid out below.  Also check the footnote here and reader feedback from the previous posting.

Hi John

Thank you for reporting your sighting of N2. This is great information.    

  

I tagged her as an After Third Year bird at the Vancouver International Airport (YVR) on 5 September 2013 and released her the next day  in Chilliwack, BC as part of a program to prevent raptors from being struck by aircraft. Yours is the first sighting of this bird since that date. Let me provide you with some information on the program so you understand a bit more why we are doing this:    

  

YVR began a program of trapping and removing Red-tailed Hawks and Rough-legged Hawks in October 2010 in order to prevent them from being struck by aircraft primarily to improve air safety, but also as a raptor conservation tool. Each year the airport has a large number of transient raptors that winter at YVR as well as resident adults and local-raised young birds. Based on information from SeaTac International Airport in Washington, we expect that adult residents are least likely to be involved in collisions with aircraft, but a significant number of young birds and transient birds are struck each year. Therefore, we are attempting to remove those birds from the airport environs by capturing them and releasing them just beyond Chilliwack where there is ample habitat and a reasonable likelihood that they will not return to YVR. I view this not only as an air safety program, but also as a raptor conservation program because, if successful, we may prevent the deaths of a dozen or more birds each year. We expanded the program this fall to all raptors (including owls). To date we have captured and relocated over 225 birds. Most of them were relocated to Chilliwack.     

We are wing-tagging Red-tailed Hawks because we need to know who our resident birds are and are co-operating in a joint program with Seatac and Portland International airports all of whom are wing tagging airport Red-tailed Hawks (using different colours for the tag material). Not only is this program contributing to air safety, we are already learning a great deal about our wintering raptors and hope to learn much more as the years pass. To date we have captured about 100 Red-tailed Hawks of which less than a third, mostly resident adult birds or  long-term wintering residents, have returned to the airport. Less than 20% of the very hazardous juvenile birds have returned. Several of our birds have been seen in Washington State and as far south as Oregon and we have had a few birds from Washington State come to YVR. We have had one sighting of a tagged Red-tailed Hawk near Kamloops. In addition we have captured 10 Rough-legged Hawks of which 2 returned to YVR, 2 Snowy Owls (1 returned), over 70 Barn Owls (only a few have returned), and smaller numbers of Great Horned Owls, American Kestrels, Peregrine Falcons, Coopers Hawks, Sharp-shinned Hawks and Merlins a few of which have returned to YVR. Raptors are one of the major strike risks at YVR and we believe that we are mitigating that risk significantly through the capture and relocation of raptors.    

It is through the sightings of many interested persons such as yourself that we are able to collect the essential information on bird movements and distribution and learn how well the measures we are using to manage wildlife at the airport and elsewhere are working.       

Thank you for your cooperation and your interest. Feel free to contact me for more information or with any sighting information.

Regards

Gary

-----------------------------

Footnote:

Hi John

Go ahead and post away - the more the word spreads the better since I rely on sightings for my data.

Yes, the tags are relatively large, but this dramatically increases the flightability of the tags and hence the number of re-sightings of each bird. My colleague and I have been using this type of tag for more than a decade with many hundreds of birds tagged. There is absolutely no impairment of flight or other behaviour. Tagged birds that return to the airport resume their territorial behaviour, breed and successfully raise young. If the tags had a negative affect in any way, we would not use them since one of the reasons we are doing the program is for the safety of the birds (as well as air safety).

Regards

Gary

Gary F. Searing, M.Sc.      

Wildlife Hazard Biologist

Airport Wildlife Management International

Executive Director

Bird Strike Association of Canada

9655 Ardmore Drive

North Saanich, British Columbia

Canada V8L 5H5

Office/Home: 250.656.1889

Cell: 250.857.5133

Skype: gfsearing

http://www.airportwildlife.ca

http://www.canadianbirdstrike.ca

Further Adventures with the Canon SX50hs

Feb 9 2014 Langley B.C. Below freezing

Sometimes when I am looking for new locations to photograph I often throw my Canon SX50hs super zoom over my shoulder. I have already written about the $300 camera in previous blogs so rather than repeat myself I will post this picture of my favourite bird, the Varied Thrush. With frozen ponds everywhere in the Lower I searched for some running water where I found a flock of four Varied Thrush.
Before I started birding seriously in 2011 I was never able to get close enough to this beautiful bird to get a decent photo, in fact my attempts were dismal. Since then I have some much better shots but not the definitive image I am happy with. Most often the Varied Thrush are seen on the ground, scratching away leaves looking for food, when I saw this one on a partially frozen waterfall I couldn't pass up the opportunity to shoot a few frames on the SCENE mode.
The shot was taken handheld at the full zoom of 1200 mm. The camera has a 28-1200mm zoom with image stabilization. I recommend this type of camera for those on a budget or if carrying lots of equipment is a problem. Panasonic has similar model with a 600mm F2.8 lens but lacks the reach of the Canon. It is also twice the price but lets but in three times more light (useful in the morning and evening) and MAY have a sharper lens. I haven't used myself but have seen many in the field and everyone I spoke to likes the Panasonic.
At my workshops and presentations I often get asked by birders what type of camera to choose. It really all it depends on what results are expected. Obviously a $10,000 kit is going to more flexible albeit much heavier. For many birders if an ID shot is all that is required then either of the above cameras will do just fine.
The next level outfit is a Nikon or Canon DSLR and 300mm F4 or Sigma 150-500mm lens which you'll need to spend around $2500. Recently Tamron just released a 150-600mm lens for $1300.
Here is the picture from the Canon SX50hs from yesterday photographed on a cloudy afternoon at 3.30 p.m. I think most birders would be happy with this quality.

Varied Thrush (Ixoreus naevius)

Good Birding

John Gordon

I went Birding Thursday

       Feb 6 2014 New Brighton Park Vancouver B.C -5 Sunny and very, very cold for B.C.

Vancouver is experiencing some wonderful sunny weather albeit unusually cold. As long as one wears plenty of clothing (I can hear those in the rest of Canada laughing) it is a pleasure to be outdoors.
The assignment for Thursday was to photograph a Gyrfalcon that has returned to New Brighton Park  in Vancouver. The speedy falcon has been feasting on pigeons which are attracted to a nearby granary crammed full of delicious Canadian wheat. Yummy for the pigeons and doubly yummy for the gyrfalcon which is dining on tasty grain fed pigeon several times a day.

A Gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus) heads toward a unsuspecting flock of pigeons.





Unfortunately the best place to stand with a clear view of the Viterra Granary is in the shade which meant a very cold wait. I spent two hours waiting patiently for the Gyrfalcon to launch itself off the conveyer belt which itself is about two hundred feet off the ground. 

A Gyrfalcon scatters a flock of pigeons. Several attacks were made without success. On one occasion a pigeon was snagged but got away. I missed the shot.

After dropping the prey the Gyrfalcon looks below but it had plunged into the water.

What can I say, the wait was well worth it despite the cold. I not only secured my first ever photographs of a gyrfalcon I was blessed to witnesses one of Nature's most powerful and beautiful performers go about its daily ritual.

The Gyrfalcon heads back to its perch ready for another foray.

Good Birding

John Gordon

                                                                           ******

Warblers and More!

April 30, 2013.  Richmond Park East, Richmond, B.C. Sunny
Richmond Park East was teeming with newly arrived warblers. Several large flocks of Yellow-rumped and dozens of Orange-crown warblers are busy feeding on insects, probably stocking up for the next leg of their journey northward. I have never seen so many birds in one place.
Deep within the forest, a Rufous hummingbird incubates a clutch of eggs. The nest is perched at the very end of a flimsy cedar branch. Across a sun drenched glade an American Goldfinch sings loudly from a treetop, a Downy woodpecker drums on a stump, and the rasping sounds of the Pine Siskins can be heard everywhere. Meanwhile Black-capped chickadees, Varied and Hermit Thrushes were all busy going about their business.
There were so many birds to focus on that it took an hour to walk a 100 metres!

Hairy woodpecker (Picoides villosus)

As mentioned in a previous blog, my highlight last week had been the Palm Warbler and the Dicksissel. Todays surprise, another 'lifer' was a colourful Townsend's Warbler. At the time I had been photographing the Yellow-rumped Warblers and thought that one of the birds had looked different but with so many hybrids I didn't realize what I had captured until later that evening while sorting through my files in Lightroom.

As I only have one frame (below) I'll include for identification purposes.

Townsend's Warbler (Setophaga townsendi) 

 It seemed that a good proportion of the flocks encountered were hybridized Yellow-rumped warblers. This bird (below) has a white and yellow chin while some birds had very dark colouring and others were predominately white bodies with all white chins.

Hybridized Yellow-rumped warbler (Setophaga coronata)
Myrtle and Audubon

Rufous hummingbird (Selasphorus rufu)

A rufous hummingbird sits on a nest made of lichen. The nest was so close to the end of a flimsy branch that predators would have difficulty approaching.

Hammond's flycatcher (Empidonax hammondii)

Earlier in the day I stopped off at Queen Elizabeth Park where I photographed a Copper's Hawk, a Ring-necked Duck, Gadwall, Hutton's Vireo and this Hammond'a Flycatcher.