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HawkWatch 2010
© Carole Brown
Chelan Ridge, at 5,000 feet, in the Cascade Mountains... Overhead, a Red-tailed Hawk catches an updraft as it migrates south. It's one of 14 North American fall raptor migration sites monitored by HawkWatch International. The HawkWatch project identifies and counts hawks, eagles, and vultures, sometimes attaching satellite-telemetry devices to birds, to gain information. There's usually a free family festival in Pateros, WA, in late September.
BirdNote®
HawkWatch 2010
Adapted from a script written by Frances Wood
This is BirdNote!
[Call of the Red-tailed Hawk heard over wind]
Imagine standing at 5000 feet on a pinnacle of rock in the Cascade Mountains. Overhead, a Red-tailed Hawk catches an updraft as it migrates south. You are at the Chelan Ridge Raptor Migration site, the best location in Washington State to see migrating raptors. It’s one of many sites maintained by The U.S. Forest Service and HawkWatch International. Right now and through October, biologists and volunteers are counting hawks, eagles, falcons, and vultures that soar nearby.
[Repeat Red-tail vocalizations and wind]
The workers also capture some of these birds of prey and attach aluminum leg-bands — and sometimes even satellite-telemetry devices — to gain information about migration routes and wintering areas.
Chelan Ridge welcomes visitors to their field station to count hawks with the biologists and learn more about trapping and banding.
Last year some 2300 hawks were counted here. Compare this with 11,000 at the Goshute Mountains in Nevada, 3,000 at Manzano Mountains in New Mexico, and more than 450,000 at Corpus Christi, Texas. Truly, a river of raptors is southbound, all coming together at the “confluence” in Veracruz, Mexico, where more than four million migrating birds of prey are counted each year.
[Repeat Red-tail vocalizations and wind]
There’s a HawkWatch festival next Saturday, September 25th (2010). Learn more on our website, BirdNote.org. I’m Mary McCann.
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Call of the Red-tailed Hawk provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Recorded by L.J. Peyton
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2010 Tune In to Nature.org September 2010
ID# hawkwatch-04-2010-09-18-MM
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