Chris Scranton and I took advantage of yesterday's mostly sunny weather to
get out and see 193 excellent raptors on ECAS's Winter Raptor Survey for
the Redmond-Terrebonne route which covers 47 miles and takes 4.5 hours to
complete. We had a four falcon species day and added Rough-legged and
Peregrine to our year lists. As usual, the fields between Lower Bridge Way
and Ice Avenue produced huge numbers of birds with 104 being RTHA. I have
speculated on this phenomena for many years only to have each hypothesis
shot down by subsequent observations. It seems to be completely
independent of vole population cycles, weather conditions and agricultural
practices (there are about half a dozen different property owners). It is
confined to this one location even though the surrounding fields appear to
share all the same variables. What causes this one geographic area to be
so darn productive? One would think that all those birds eating voles
every day for months would quickly decimate the population, especially
since they are not reproducing during the winter months. Oh well, some
mysteries are never solved ... and that's the way I like it!
173 Red-tailed Hawk
10 American Kestrel
1 Bald Eagle (adult)
5 Rough-legged Hawk
1 Peregrine
2 Prairie Falcon
1 Merlin
David Vick
Terrebonne
