יומן של Inland Pacific Northwest Raptor Migration 2021

Top 5 Species (November):
Red-tailed Hawk -- 70 obs
Rough-legged Hawk -- 20 obs (new to Top 5)
Bald Eagle -- 18 obs (-1)
Northern Harrier -- 11 obs (returned to Top 5)
American Kestrel -- 10 obs (-1)

Top 5 Species (Overall):
Red-tailed Hawk -- 332 obs
American Kestrel -- 66 obs (+2)
Turkey Vulture -- 61 obs (-1)
Bald Eagle -- 58 obs (new to Top 5)
Osprey -- 53 obs (-2)

Total Species Overall: 29

Top 5 Observers (Observations):
birdwhisperer -- 295 obs
@cgates326 -- 52 obs
@masonmaron -- 47 obs
@andybridges -- 40 obs
@the-catfinch -- 38 obs

Top 5 Observers (Species):
birdwhisperer -- 20 species
cgates326 -- 14 species
@jnelson -- 13 species
masonmaron -- 11 species
the-catfinch -- 11 species

Species Still Not Observed: White-tailed Kite, Snowy Owl, Northern Hawk-Owl, Spotted Owl, Boreal Owl, Gyrfalcon

New Species in November: None

**Counties Needing Observations: WA -- Columbia -- OR -- Gilliam, Jefferson

News and What to Expect in December: Wow, we are on the last leg of our journey. Thirty days from now, this project will come to a close for the season, thus ending 3 years I've done this project. I wish it hadn't ended so soon but that's how life goes. My biggest goal is to get some new species added. On average and including the coastal survey group, our projects get about 30 species per year. If we were to end the project today, we'd have the 2nd worst record in terms of variety, all because we didn't get one species. I've been successful in getting 30 for the project in both 2019 and 2020 and I'm not stopping now. But with a report of a Snowy Owl in Pendleton, Oregon and a Gyrfalcon in Wallowa, Oregon, I see myself getting busy. Any chances of me revisiting my Blue Mountain Boreal Owl for an iNat-able documentation is out of the question now since the mountains are now under 8 inches of snow, but you might still be able to get it on Mt. Rainier if you're lucky.

Observation of the Week goes to myself because I'm selfish. But come on, look at this male American Kestrel! I've never seen a kestrel so close to my property let alone so cooperative with me standing so close for that fantastic image. Our smallest falcon, kestrels are pretty good mousers and they're better at it than the cats. You can see them in most open habitats sitting on wires, making them a common species for the project, as you can see above. You can see the image here and hopefully you can get a photo too of this adorable little kestrel.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/102147687

I've chosen jnelson's Great Horned Owl from Harney as the Observation for the Month because I think it's a good discussion species. Recently, I've been helping to implement the new avian taxonomy to iNaturalist but I figured out during this that one of these new changes will be the addition of 3 new Great Horned Owl subspecies. Oh boy, that's no good. It's hard to explain the situation in one paragraph but I agree there are some subspecies but individual variation really blurs the lines with other subspecies. The iNat revision will put all southeastern Oregon owls in the new subspecies pinorum. But Nelson's photo shows a bird that looks remarkably pale, almost like unto pallescens of the southwest deserts. That should be way out of range for them and being a sedentary species, the chances are that much more decreased. My theory, Great Horned Owls are polymorphic, like Red-tailed Hawks. I say this because there are owls in Walla Walla, which is the type locality of lagophonus, that are paired with an owl as dark as saturatus in the Haida Gwaii or some pale enough to be pallescens like Nelson's owl. How factual that is, we'll see but I can see for certain the owl in the link is paler than it should be.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/101861045

When I wrote the monthly post last time, the project was at 686 observations. Since then, we've sailed high and above to get 911. That puts us a whole 6 observations away from breaking our 2020 record. I think I can say we got this in the bag, this week is all we need, especially with the inflow we're getting. This also leaves me hopeful we can break our 2019 record, which is currently 147 observations away (1058). We just need to keep up the good work and with Christmas Bird Counts coming up, we're giving plenty of opportunities. Good luck!

The addition of 47 new observations puts the total count at 967. We are so close to a thousand you guys! We should be able to get it by next week, I'm sure. And I need to contact some folks in the Tri-cities and get them to join iNat so we can add Snowy Owl on the list. I missed her when I was up there this weekend and trust me, I worked hard on relocating her.

The Observation of the Week goes to @brodiecasstalbott for spotting a Barred Owl in Sherman Co, Oregon. This species is perhaps my biggest Oregon nemesis bird. In fact, I've only seen one Barred Owl in my life and that was in Boise a few years back. I don't know how iNaters find 800 owls for the project, but I certainly don't have that luck. Anyway, enjoy this handsome colonzier:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/102505032

We're still looking for Snowy Owls or Gyrfalcons. I will chasing the latter species this weekend, so hopefully I can find him. With snow engulfing northeast Oregon this week, we should see an influx of many winter species, both raptors and other birds alike. Good luck out there and stay tune for the next update.

With the addition of 27 observations over the week, plus a boatload of older reports from our dictated members, we are now officially only thirty-four away from tying with our all-time record! Yahoo! We should definitely break that record this week with the raptors I photographed today and what I will be seeing in the next week.

Observation of the Week goes to @the-catfinch for a fantastic image of an intermediate morph Harlan's Hawk. No one can tell me otherwise, but these birds do not belong in the Red-tailed Hawk complex, some of these adults are so obviously distinct, how can they not be species? So, they might hybridize with Red-tails, it wouldn't be any different from Asian Buteos. If you see any Harlan's, be sure to photograph them, they are on the coolest raptors out there.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/102856240

No Snowy Owls or Gyrfalcons yet on iNat, but they're in the area according to eBird, so keep your eyes open. We only have two weeks left before this project officially ends, time's a tickin'. Besides that, I don't have much more news to give. If you're participating in a Christmas Bird Count this week, photograph the raptors.

Well folks, we did it. All we needed was 34 new observations and we went above and beyond and added 61. This project is now officially on record the year with the most observations, comfortably sitting at 1,086. Let's see how many more we can add with the chaos of Christmas and New Year's.

I'm nominating myself for the Observation of the Week because we need to discuss a very serious issue. It deals with raptors in the West and that's literally what this project is about. This past Sunday was the Christmas Bird Count for Union County, Oregon. I had the task of counting birds throughout the town of Union. We did about three quarters of our route before I saw a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk sitting in someone's yard. When I attempted pictures, he ran away, and it was obvious there was something seriously wrong with his wing. We captured him easily and we rushed to Pendleton in awful winter weather to get him to the raptor rescue. We stayed until we figured out what was wrong with Carl (yes, I named him). It was actually what I had feared from the start. A bullet, presumably from a .22, blasted off the top half of Carl's right scapula muscle and without the support of the bone, it caused the coracoid to twist and tear pectoral ligaments. That's why his wing looked fine upon examination, because it wasn't the wing preventing him from flying but the shoulder. When we pushed back his feathers along his shoulder, we could see the gash the bullet made and the expose bone. The rehab had very little choice but to put him down. The scapula and surrounding muscle are not exactly something you can live without, even if he stayed at the rehab as an education bird. It was truly a heartbreaking moment for me.

As much as I'm furious at the person who shot Carl, I think the blame equally goes to the Oregon Fish and Wildlife. Raptors all over the West are being shot by people. The best loop in the Grand Ronde Valley for raptors normally sees at least one raptor shot by someone every winter. A friend of mine in Idaho drove down a road this summer that had five raptors shot and killed there, two of which were Ferruginous Hawks. The wildlife rehab in Pendleton exists primarily because that many raptors are shot. Why isn't the ODFW not taking cases like this more seriously? Even though we reported Carl's story to them, they likely won't even send a guy over to investigate the recovery scene. They've already proven to me that they don't care of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

In my senior year of high school, I watched a Say's Phoebe build her nest and lay her eggs when I arrived at the sports complex for baseball practice. Kids threatened to destroy the nest, just for the sheer fun of it. I explained it was illegal and I even reported them to the school for thinking about it. Graduation came and my last check on the nest showed three eggs, about 3-5 days from hatching. I came back a week later with a friend and the nest was gone. Not just destroyed but gone. Whoever did it, not only removed the nest but used cleaner as well to remove the dirt that would've inevitably get stuck on the light or the wall of the building. A teenage wouldn't go through the effort to clean the area as well, they'd just destroy it and be on with their lives. That means only one person could've done it: the janitor, aka my baseball coach. I got in touch with the wildlife crime division with Oregon State Police (since ODFW can only investigate, not enforce the law) and the officer on the end of the line, literally told me "All we can do is tell him it's illegal."

As we all know, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act has been a hot topic of debate over the past couple years with how previous administrations have handled it, but I say, what good does it do if law enforcement won't even enforce the law in the first place? I have too many stories of illegal activities against birds to make me believe the cops really care about the law. They have the mentality of, "it's just a bird". So, I believe change starts by promotion. Let everyone know birders like us won't step down to these horrible and illegal acts. In the case of Carl, even if a good decent investigation were to take place, I don't we'd find the culprit, unless a neighbor rats them out. We have no bullet to match up with a gun, but the culprit most likely committed two crimes: one for shooting Carl, two for using a firearm within city limits. What if that bullet missed Carl and hit a kid playing in their front yard? Carl may not find justice, but hopefully if we can spread the word, we can have less incidents like this.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/103340390

We only have a week and a half left of this project, let's see how many observations we can squeeze in in that timeframe. We still need Gyrfalcon and Snowy Owl, so please someone find one. I wish you all the best of luck as always.