Rough-legged Hawks Irrupting
This is a companion blog entry to the Winter Bird Forecast by Audubon Connecticut and the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History. Be sure to watch for our fifth forecast, coming soon! Wherever you are across the Northeast you have likely seen or read a report about a Rough-legged Hawk nearby this winter. This beautiful raptor, available in both a light and dark color morph, has irrupted across a broad swath of the upper parts of the Lower 48. The wintering specialty is at home in open and coastal areas such as marshes, grasslands, airports – hey, a lot of the same places the...
Read MoreBanded Peregrine Falcon Devouring Pigeon
One of the most outrageously spectacular and breath-taking winter bird sightings you can have is, in my opinion, the Peregrine Falcon. As the fastest animal on the Earth the Peregrine is already in a class of its own, and if you have never seen one stooping on shorebirds, waterfowl or other coastal and open-country birds you are missing out on one of the most unbelievable happenings on the planet. The raw power and sheer speed these birds display is literally unmatched. After recovering from decimation via DDT the Peregrine Falcon has begun to reconquer our landscape, moving into cities and...
Read MoreMerlin on Wire
Merlins certainly do love their power lines! Perhaps next spring and summer you will find one like this in your neighborhood with a nest not far away. We are seeing more and more of them locally in the Chautauqua-Allegheny region. During the last breeding season we had a pair less than a mile away from us at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History in Jamestown, New York. They can be found even in suburban to near urban habitats.
Read MoreRed-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus)
This Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus) has been hanging out with RTPI Affiliate Sean Graesser at Audubon Greenwich recently. Many more have been passing through as their migration has peaked in early November. There is still plenty of action in the sky even at this late autumn date.
Read MorePower lines and birds
Earlier this week I read a story about a bird rescue by the fire department from my hometown. It seems a gull had gotten tangled in fishing line – an unfortunately common occurrence easily avoided if everyone fishing would clean up after themselves – and then compounded the problem by getting stuck on power lines! I thought to myself, you know what? This must happen on a relatively frequent basis to various birds, especially the large ones that would perch on them. We discuss cats, buildings, pollution, and many other sources of avian mortality, but power systems are everywhere,...
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