Everyone seems to thoroughly enjoy this post every year, so I keep sharing. If you're someone who's eeked out by birds, you may want to navigate away now. If you're someone who geeks out on birds, enjoy!
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We had an outstanding week banding raptors in Cape May for the Cape May Raptor Banding Project this year. (FYI, this is NOT something I do because of my job. I actually take a vacation to volunteer with this project.) More birds in our short time there than we've ever had before. Monday we had 53 birds through the blind! Talk about ringin' (banding) and slingin' (releasing)! A dozen birds were in the blind at one point. I was the one processing that day. It was beautiful chaos. So many Accipiters (sharp-shinned and Cooper's hawks)!
Notable birds banded throughout the week were: red-tailed hawks (RTHA), northern harriers (my spirit bird)(NOHA), merlins, a red-shouldered hawk, sharp-shinned hawks (SSHA), Coopers hawks (COHA), a northern goshawk (NOGO). Of these, we had a wealth of adults, which was a thrill. Usually, we're dealing with hatch year birds.
Birds seen but not banded: golden eagles, bald eagles, kestrels, peregrine falcons. Of these, we had some pretty close calls with the latter three. Peregrines are always an absolute BLAST to watch hunting with their acrobatic diving at top speeds. We even had a juvenile bald eagle come into the station for a serious look, but he ended up swooping off to perch in a nearby snag. An adult bald also looked like it would come in, but dropped last minute into the marsh (to never be seen again).
Acronyms to keep in mind: HY = hatch year, SY = second year, and ASY = after second year.
Without further ado, have a photo dump of birds of prey!
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| HY COHA |
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With our "Well, this is hawkward" shirts holding SSHAs
Mandy is the reason these trips happen every year <3 |
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| Sunrise over the marsh; the view from our blind |
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| HY MERL |
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| ASY SSHA |
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| ASY SSHA |
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| HY male NOHA; sorry in advance for the wealth of harrier photos, I love them |
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| ASY COHA - look at that eye!! |
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| ASY COHA after release |
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| HY female NOHA |
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| HY female NOHA |
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| Adult feathers coming in on the HY female NOHA's tail (center) |
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| HY RTHA - with the most beautiful tail for a HY bird! |
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| They don't turn red until they're adults, but this one had a jump on it. Gorgeous red in the banding. |
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| HY RTHA |
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Thrilled to death with this harrier in hand. I got photos with *every* harrier this year.
May share the collage of "Liz with Harriers" at a later date lol
HY female NOHA |
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| HY female NOHA |
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| You can see her adult vs. hatch year tail feathers once again (most every HY harrier we saw had this) |
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| HY female NOHA |
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SY male NOHA - male NOHA's turn a beautiful grey in their adult years and are called "grey ghosts"
Their eyes are also a goregous, striking yellow. |
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| Sunset lighting on our marsh. |
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| HY male NOHA; you can see how his light colored eyes will eventually trend to yellow like the above bird |
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| HY RTHA |
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| HY RTHA |
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| HY RTHA |
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| ASY male MERL, also known as "blue jacks" for their dark blueish plummage |
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| ASY male MERL |
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HY male NOGO; the noisiest bird you'll ever meet!
They also will ATTACK you if you're within ~500 feet of their nests when the nest is active. |
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| HY male NOGO |
