2015 AOU Check-list Supplement

Roadside Hawk - Catherine Hamilton

The American Ornithological Union recently released its 2015 Check-list Supplement (available here). There are a few changes that will be of interest to raptor aficionados and hawkwatchers in this year’s supplement. Coincidentally most of them seem to affect raptors that we hope to see on our Raptors of the Rio Grande Valley Tour in November (link here). 

One change is a new genus and sequence for both White-tailed and Roadside Hawk. White-tailed Hawk makes a change from Buteo albicaudatus to Geranoaetus albicaudatus based on genetic data. This means that White-tailed Hawk moves into a genus with Variable Hawk and Black-chested Buzzard-Eagle and becomes the only North American Geranoaetus. White-tailed Hawk is mainly restricted to coastal southern Texas in the USA and can be found southwards all the way to Argentina.

White-tailed Hawk - Catherine Hamilton

Roadside Hawk also comes out of Buteo into its own genus Rupornis. This species has a number of subspecies, some of which may well deserve species status, and can be found from Mexico south to tropical South America. Though considered a mainly resident species there are eight winter records of the species from the Rio Grande Valley, TX (so we will keep our fingers crossed).

New Buteonine Hawk Sequence: Roadside Hawk, Harris’s Hawk, White-tailed Hawk, Gray Hawk, Red-shouldered Hawk, Broad-winged Hawk, Hawaiian Hawk, Short-tailed Hawk, Zone-tailed Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, Rough-legged Hawk, Ferruginous Hawk 

One of the other species we will see in Texas is involved in a small change as Crested Caracara comes out of its subfamily Caracarinae and moves into the family of true falcons: Falconinae.

Northern Harrier -  Rick Bacher

One of the proposed changes that was not accepted but might be of interest to raptor fans, hawkwatchers and maybe more specifically raptor banders was the proposal to split Northern Harrier (Circus hudsonius) from Hen Harrier (Circus cyaneus). There is currently one accepted record of the European subspecies from a wing found on the Aleutians in 1999, though Howell in his comments in Rare Birds of North America (Princeton University Press 2014) suggests that there are other promising reports out there including one from New Jersey in 2010. The book also has a good overview on separating the two subspecies: relatively easy with adult male Hen Harriers which are much cleaner grey and white and with six black primaries, much less so with females and juveniles. Juvenile Hen Harrier averages streakier than Northern and much less cinnamon/orange overall. You can read a good perspective on the ID challenge from Julian Hough on Birding Frontiers (details here) and read an account of the Cape May bird (link here). Getting extensive photos of interesting birds would be highly recommended!

And they are off...

Northern Harrier - Kimberly Kaufman

As July turns into August and southbound migration begins to gather apace, hawkwatches across the country start to get into gear for the oncoming raptors. I am sure that many readers here are already starting to eagerly anticipate both the arrival of hawks at their local watches and the chance to get together with friends that they may not have seen much of for the last nine months. A few watches will be starting their counts today and as we roll further into the month of August we will see more and more watches come online. You can, of course, keep up with all the daily developments across the continent on Hawkcount.org (link here).

Northern Harrier - Ashli Maruster Gorbet

Everyone loves a 'Gray Ghost', but recently it seems like there just haven't been enough of them around. Participants at the Kittatinny Roundtable gathering (see previous post) observed a notable decline in Northern Harrier numbers at New Jersey and Pennsylvania count sites last Fall, with Hawk Mountain tallying their lowest total since 1942. Northern Harrier is a species of special concern in a number of the states our watches are conducted in, and that I have counted at, but with highly variable returns watch numbers currently show little in the way of any concrete overall picture of how they are fairing. It does however feel like numbers have been trending down for a few Falls now. In the Northeast the figures seem to back this up with five out of the last six seasons being poor ones that are down below average. It'll be interesting to see if this continues and whether a trend is developing.

When I was counting in Connecticut my friend Tom just insisted we weren't staying late enough in the day to catch them all and I think he was only kind of joking. Anyway something to note and perhaps a species to maybe focus a little effort on collecting solid data on. As well as being fun, hawkwatching, and the data collected, can play an important part in the puzzle that helps us work out what is happening with individual raptor species.

Northern Harrier - Alex Lamoreaux

Of course many watches like to go above and beyond merely identifying passing individuals to species to aging and sexing birds and this of course can add value to collected data. Harriers ostensibly are one of the easiest raptors to do this with as juveniles, adult females and adult males are all theoretically pretty readily identifiable in the field. That said as with all birding activities that require parsing of information with birds that are in view for a short period of time, in bad light, or at distance (and often all three) care should be taken. If you haven't read Liguori and Sullivan's American Birding Association article about adult harriers that retain brown plumage and the intricacies of their molt then you should, it's quite an eye opener. (PDF online here). Jerry also posted a brief but excellent post a while back on his blog about being careful with using coloration when it comes to separating brown female and juvenile birds at a distance. (Blog post here).

Northen Harrier - Rick Bacher

Personally I have found Northern Harriers, though in many ways highly distinctive, one of those birds that seems to be surprisingly difficult for even intermediate level birders to initially identify at the watch. The obvious reason for this is the disparity in flight style between the way we generally see them coursing low over fields and marshes to the way they look flapping in direct flight or soaring within a kettle of migrant raptors. If you are interested in seriously improving your skills picking out those migrant harriers, or want to get better at aging or sexing them then come join HMANA for it's week long Raptor ID Workshop in 2015. To find out more about that event and to read the report from the incredible 2014 Workshop visit our website (link here).

So keep 'em peeled for Northern Harriers, it will be interesting to see what this season brings.

Northern Harrier - Sue Barth

Talking of keeping your eyes peeled, if you live in the Northeast perhaps this Fall is the Fall to bring yourself hero status at your local hawkwatch: by spotting a migrant Zone-tailed Hawk. After an exciting initial sighting this spring of a extremely out of range Zone-tailed Hawk out on Martha's Vinyard, MA (here), there were further sightings in both Nova Scotia on June 1st (photos here) and in Halifax, Massachusetts in July (photos here). They have to go somewhere right? If you don't fancy your chances and want better odds of seeing Zone-tailed Hawks in North America you might want to keep an eye on HMANA's soon-to-be-announced tour offerings to Texas and Arizona (here).

Northern Harrier - © Dominic Mitchell (www.birdingetc.com)

On behalf of HMANA I hope all our supporters, members and readers have an enjoyable and productive Fall season. Thanks to all of my friends who generously donated their photographs for this blog post. The harriers pictured come from Cape May, New Jersey to Vancouver, British Columbia and most points between. It's these birds that unite us - let's get together and enjoy them for the next few months!

Raptor Bytes - hawkwatching morsels from around the web

PBS Earthflight

I hope that many of you have been able to catch the stunning Earthflight series on PBS. The next episode is airing tomorrow, September the 25^th and is set in South America. You can see previews, bonus footage and the three already aired episodes on the PBS website here (link). To get some idea of the incredible footage that the series includes watch the video above of Long-legged Buzzard hunting Rock Pigeons in Jodhpur, India. For Sci-Fi fans and anglophiles you might want to watch the BBC version on YouTube which is narrated by ex-Doctor Who actor David Tennant. 

Male Northern Harrier - Vic Berardi

Easy Harriers?

The Grey Ghost is a much sought after and venerated raptor at any hawk watch. It certainly seems to be high on most people’s favorites list when you discuss raptors with aficionados. That said it always seems to raise the question: ‘why do you see so few male harriers?’ Well, back in April the American Birding Association published a fascinating article in their magazine: Birding (available to members) by Jerry Liguori and Brian Sullivan suggesting one potential reason. It is known that many 2nd cycle males hold a brownish plumage, but the article notes that many male harriers continue to be brownish birds well past their second year. You can read the article for yourselves as the ABA have kindly posted a PDF of the article online here (link). Bird banding expert Peter Pyle wrote a rebuttal of the argument in the letters page of the July/August issue of Birding which also had a response to that rebuttal from Liguori and Sullivan. Fascinating stuff.

Liguori Blog

Incidentally the latest posting on Jerry’s excellent blog (here) is all about aging ‘brown’ juvenile/female type harriers and the need to be careful when doing so. If you haven’t already checked out Jerry’s blog,  make sure you add it to your reading list as it is absolutely packed with fun, fascinating and useful blog posts about raptor identification and more.

Hawkwatchers - Luke Tiller

Florida Keys Birding and Wildlife Festival

How I wish I were heading for the Florida Keys Hawkwatch this week! Today sees the start of the Florida Keys Birding and Wildlife Festival, which runs through until Sunday. You can check out the events on the festival website (here).  The hawkwatch runs through until early November and boasts massive flights of Peregrine Falcons, southern raptor specialties, Florida bird specialties and being perhaps the only hawkwatch in the US where you have any chance of having a Short-tailed Hawk catching some thermals with a Magnificent Frigatebird! You can check out the hawkwatch website here (link). It’s also the destination for HMANA’s much anticipated tour in 2014, more detail on our website (here).

American Kestrel - Luke Tiller

Crossley added to Hawk Mountain Board

Richard Crossley of bird identification fieldguide fame (including the excellent Crossley ID Guide: Raptors) and one of the driving forces behind the Pledge to Fledge: an organization focused on promoting birding across the globe (website here) has recently been added to the board at Hawk Mountain. It’s good to see such a tireless advocate for birds and birding added to their board.

Winter Raptor Surveyors can now enter data on line!

Surveying the landscape
W.Fogleman photo

Although HMANA has been encouraging its members to participate in Winter Raptor Surveys for a number of years, there has not been an easy way for surveyors to enter their data a la HawkCount.  The Winter Raptor Survey Committee has now succeeded in developing an on-line data entry procedure.

Log on to http://www.hmana.org/wrs.php and find out how to participate in what promises to be a valuable citizen science effort.  Winter Raptor Surveys provide an opportunity to a) bridge the gap between fall and spring migration; b) contribute to the growing understanding of seasonal raptor dynamics; and c) have fun.  

When you log on you will see the guidelines for selecting an area and designing a route.  You can then register your route, download a field data sheet, and look forward to having a lot of fun in the field this winter.  The data you collect will provide researchers with important information for, among other things,  studying the effects of global climate change on raptor distribution, for looking at fluctuations in gender and morph demographics; and population statistics which can be combined with migration studies and contribute to fine-tuning the Raptor Population Index.

Those who have done surveys in the past will be glad to know that they can register their routes and enter that past data for those routes.  If you have been doing surveys for a while, you should check the website above to read the changes in the instructions and to download the revised field data sheet.

Rough-legged Hawk photo by Vic Berardi

This HMANA WRS data entry system is now ready for survey data entry. Because in the “back-ground” it is techni-cally still under development, the WRS Committee requests you report any problems or suggestions to wrs@hmana.org.  The Committee hopes that any “glitches” during this initial phase will be minor, and that participants will find the process of entering data to go smoothly.

Male Northern Harrier photo by Vic Berardi

Watching a hover-hunting Rough-legged Hawk illu-minated by bright sunlight reflected off a snow-covered field, seeing how amazingly silver a male Northern Harrier looks as it courses back and forth over that same field, determining that the
lump of weeds off to the left is really a Short-eared Owl --- all these experiences await you this winter.  Record them!  Ten years from now that information could be of great value.

Short-eared Owl photo by Shawn Carey

Ghosts of a Chance

I do much of my spring hawk watching on Plum Island, at the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge in Massachusetts, where the stars are potentially hundreds of kestrels and maybe a dozen or more Merlins on a great flight day. Under optimal conditions, the birds are low, moving up the barrier beach, and providing spectacular views. Despite standing merely two or three feet above sea level, you are able to look down on dozens, occasionally hundreds, of falcons slicing into the wind (not all at once)!

However, most of the time, you are looking for a handful of individuals per day. Winds from the north or east are essentially the kiss of death. On sunny days with warm southwest winds, individual hawks may be soaring high into a clear blue sky and even pass unnoticed. If they are discovered, they are often classified in the same category as “noseeums.” Not rewarding to say the least. If the southwest winds aren’t very strong, a bone-chilling sea breeze kicks in, so you in your winter coat and gloves are looking at nothing while five miles inland people are working in their yards or gardens in t-shirts and shorts. The past two days with warm but weak southwest winds, counters had a total of 4 birds in about 8 hours. Even though we can’t see the water on the other side of the dunes, at least we did have several adult gannets right on the beach.

At Plum, we pray for strong, gusty winds somewhere out of the west, preferably west or northwest. It pushes birds towards the coast and keeps them low on the barrier beach. A good day has dozens of kestrels and handfuls of Merlins, while a great day can produce hundreds of kestrels and dozens of Merlins. Wednesday, April 8 proved to be one of the best hawk days I’ve ever had on the island. Over 390 hawks, including at least 306 kestrels, 10 Merlins, 2 Peregrines, a Bald Eagle, and 56 Northern Harriers.

I love harriers, one of my favorite hawks, but this flight was incredible. We had at least 28 adult males and 21 adult females, with 7 immature or unaged birds, and we had a feeling we were missing some birds going over the marsh low in the distance. Almost all these birds were on the deck, only several feet off the ground, and usually passing within 30-50 yards. I’ve never seen so many adult males in one day, or adult females, and so well. Normally, you don’t see the fine vermiculation on the adult males, but this day it was evident on almost every one, and the subtle shades of gray defy description. The females stood out for their mature, grayish brown backs and the notable streaking on their upper breasts. Several were the most grizzly grayish females I've ever seen. I saw more varied adult plumages, and more clearly, than I ever have seen before. (This likely is a state record count of Northern Harriers from my initial search, but a little more digging must be done to be sure.)

The kestrels alone would have made for a spectacular day, but the Gray Ghosts were just incredible. It is a bit sobering to have been hawk watching for almost forty years and realize that you have never seen anything close to this for one of your favorite species, and you are unlikely to ever do so again. I have just a ghost of a chance....


Photo courtesy of Joseph Kennedy. Used with permission.