Kirsten Elliott

Red-tailed Hawk Patagial Marks

Do all Red-tailed Hawks show dark patagials? Well, yes, but… Dark patagials (or “patagial bars”) is a well-known ID trait for light-morph Red-tailed Hawks, but some show very faint patagials, appearing as if they lack dark “bars” altogether. This is more common with juvenile Red-tails than adults, and with Eastern Red-tails rather than Western. Interestingly, […]

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Ferruginous Away – Migration is on!

Raptor migration is in full swing, and nothing is more exciting than observing thousands of hawks headed toward their wintering grounds (or breeding grounds in the spring).  One North American raptor species we don’t often hear about during migration is the Ferruginous Hawk.  Although a few are observed each season among several of our sites, they

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Cool Sightings at the Grand Canyon

Greetings from the Grand Canyon HawkWatch crew!  Our second week of migration started out rough last weekend with powerful southerly winds maxing above 30 km/hour.  Unfavorable conditions persisted until Wednesday when the winds finally shifted, and we had our biggest day of the season so far, with 62 migrant raptors passing observation, and we were full of

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Greetings from the Manzanos Crew

Greetings from the Land of Enchantment! Here in the Manzanos, we’re beginning the 30th consecutive season observing migrating raptors at the Manzano Mountains HawkWatch!  It’s been a great start thus far, aside from some wet weather. Some early season highlights include several immature Golden Eagles, an immature Northern Goshawk, a flurry of Ospreys, and some spectacular

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