[birding] Help with REDTAILs

[Joel Geier]

Hi Rick & All,

This morning our 11-yr-old daughter Martha mentioned that an odd-looking
hawk was flying around and calling frequently. From her description
(similar to red-tailed but light tail, lots of white in the wings) it
sounded like a juvenile bird recently out of the nest. I've frankly been
too busy lately to keep tabs on the local birds, but based on that
perhaps you'll be seeing more Red-tailed Hawks soon as the youngsters
fledge and move out from nesting areas.

The other thing going on of course is the grass-seed harvest. I've been
seeing congregations of Turkey Vultures searching windrows in nearby
fields, where there is plenty of carrion from rodents and snakes that
get caught in the swathers. Red-tailed Hawks normally also take
advantage of this situation, and do much of their "hunting" by walking
around on the ground, scavenging and probably also pouncing on voles
that are short on cover. 

So perhaps you'll see more redtails if you look out into the fields (on
the ground), rather than on their usual perches. Since most fields have
been swathed but not yet combined (seems like harvest is running a bit
later than usual this year due to late June rains), it might be hard to
see the hawks in between those windrows.

Happy birding,
Joel

On Tue, 2010-07-13 at 11:54 -0700, Rick Hale wrote:
> I live in Albany and work in Corvallis. I drive HWY34 everyday. I
> noticed that in early spring, there were tons on REDTAIL HAWKS
> everyday along my 12 mile trek. Then they faded off to have babies.
> Now they are gone. I don't see any now. Where do they go?
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