Broad-winged Hawks, now we know what to do!

On my way over to Canada, I stopped of briefly in the UK to ring a brood of Tawny Owls with Paul Roper, oh and a quick hello to Mum and family!

But I was very keen to get to Canada and to spend the next 4 weeks in the woods of upstate Ontario looking for Broad-winged Hawks to ring (Band) with my Charlotte.

Thanks to Simcoe County Banding Group and coordinator Nigel Shaw, we had got some colour bands for the birds and armed with these we set off up into 'cottage' country and the land of a thousand lakes.

last year we did exceptionally well with 46 birds banded, and hoped to repeat that success, but what we ended up with was right off the chart of anything we could have imagined, with a huge tally of 97 birds banded plus a retrap!!!

Our first session got off to a flying start and in particular re-trapping a bird from last year in exactly the same place! This bird (now X05!) had been all the way down to South America and back to the same tree almost!

Out of all the birds we caught we only got one juvenile (2nd year) with the remainder all adults, with most 1st year birds staying on the over wintering grounds.

New ones for me were seeing a Black Bear for the fist time, a gorgeous beast we disturbed sunbathing in a meadow! The only 'tick' was a Purple Finch, a smart bird. Also finally going to see Niagra Falls when we went to go pick up my niece Flora who was taking a work break from NY to come see us!

smart birds are Broadwings..

X05, back at the same spot

Bear tick!

view from our friends Jan and Ralphs dock

Purple Finch 

adult male American Kestrels were around, we got several 

adult male American Redstart

Charlotte and her favourite, Barred Owl!

quite often we would get whats called a 'double header' two birds on one trap!