Raptors have been plentiful this fall around Peace River. I have officially moved up here from Saskatoon and getting out to band birds is alot more difficult with a full-time job.
Rough-legged Hawks have been coming through in October and some days I counted 10-20 birds hunting in the same field! They were extremely hard to trap this fall i'm speculating because of the amount of mice and voles in the field but whenever I tried to trap one they would ignore my efforts. I was lucky enough to trap a dark RLHA back at the end of October. I'm guessing it came in as fast as it did because it was starving, it was an adult male and it was very thin weighing in at 820 grms!
There were a number of Harlan's Hawks coming through and I was able to catch an adult male. I had a number of juvy Harlan's stuck on my trap but wasn't able to secure them and they flew away.
Here is a picture of a Northern Hawk Owl that I banded a couple of days ago.
I was out looking for Snowy Owls south of Peace River yesterday. I've only come across 2 SNOW's and haven't been able to catch any but I did manage to catch 2 more Rough-legged Hawks. Here's one of them. A nice HY female but a little on the thin side at 928 grms.
