African Affinity Birding: Canada winter Raptors 2020

Late season winter Raptors in Ontario 2019-2020 season.

adult female Snowy

With the Covid-19 Pandemic manifesting itself on the international travel scene in March, I was able to to escape from the looming winter in South Africa to Canada, just in time before borders started closing.
The winter raptor season for Simcoe Country Banding Group is from November 1st to April 1st and so this was the latest I had ever been out trapping in Canada.
Charlotte and I started out doing the western sites in March, where we saw hundreds of Tundra Swans on migration and resting in the fields. There were also many Pintail and Mallard. Spring was certainly in the air with American Woodcocks 'peenting' and we saw our first Sandhill Cranes on the 25th. It was mostly around +2 degrees with some mornings starting off at -6.
Over the next 2 weeks, we managed to catch Charlottes 30th Snowy Owl for the season and then 2 birds later the groups 50th for the season.
Rough-legged Hawks were plentiful during this time, all heading to the arctic to breed and we caught our first one on the 18th, a a beautiful blonde 3rd year female. We also caught our first dark morph, an adult male.
We continued to trap until the 6th of April, as we were still catching Snowy Owls, which are the priority as well as a couple of Rough-legged Hawks up to the 5th of April.
Red-tailed Hawks were generally plentiful and we continued catching into April with Charlottes 50th on the 24th and the 51st was a controlled bird that had been banded as a hatch year in 2010 at Holiday Beach on Lake Erie. Most of the birds we were seeing and catching were migrants.
American Kestrels were abundant and we caught up to 4 on some days, also moving through and we got the groups 52nd bird of the season which was a new record.

Summary of banded birds for Charlotte and myself with group totals in brackets.
Snowy Owl x 39 (58)
Red-tail x 69 (132)
Rough-legged Hawk x 11 (19)
American Kestrel x 35 (52)
Northern Shrike x 12 (23)