Pacific Raptor Report
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GOLDEN GATE RAPTOR OBSERVATORY NUMBER 26 n 2005 PACIFIC RAPTOR REPORT RED-SHOULDERED HAWK (BUTEO LINEATUS] PEN & INK DRAWING BY SIOBHAN RUCK PACIFIC RAPTOR REPOR T GGRO’S FOUNDER, JUDD HOWELL, STARES DOWN A RED-TAILED HAWK DURING THE FIRST BANDING SEASON IN 1983. TODAY JUDD LEADS USGS’S PATUXENT WILDLIFE RESEARCH CENTER IN MARYLAND, OVERSEEING—AMONG MANY RESEARCH PROGRAM—THE BIRD BANDING LAB. [GGRO] PACIFIC RAPTOR REPORT THE NEWSLETTER OF THE GOLDEN GATE RAPTOR OBSERVATORY TURNING THE GRAND CORNER Allen Fish 3 THE AGE STRUCTURE OF AUTUMN RAPTORS IN THE MARIN HEADLANDS Buzz Hull 4 REMEMBERING WILL SHOR 1920 – 2005 8 HAWKWATCH 2004 Allen Fish 14 WHO KNEW?–THE MARIN HEADLANDS HAS A SPRING HAWK FLIGHT Steve Bauer 17 TELEMETRY 2004 Elizabeth Rouan 20 BANDING 2004 Diane Horn 23 BAND RECOVERIES 2004 Marion Weeks 25 TWENTY YEARS OF GGRO INTERNS Allen Fish 29 RAPTOR NOTEBOOK–REDTAILS BUILD ON BASKETS Anne Ardillo 34 PEREGRINATIONS–SOUTHERN SOLANO COUNTY Susan Culliney, Kerry Neijstrom, Rachel Norris, & Hayley Ross 36 DONORS 2004 42 VOLUNTEERS 2004 43 GGRO STAFFBOX 43 The Golden Gate Raptor Observatory is a program of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy in cooperaton with the National Park Service. 2 2004 TURNING THE GRAND CORNER ANNOUNCING GGRO’S DATA ANALYSIS & PUBLISHING FUND Allen Fish “The banding program at Pt. Diablo appears as though it will work. Will Shor and I set up a dho-gazza trap on Saturday, September 24th. We caught two immature Cooper’s Hawks before we could sit down. The birds were banded, wings and tails measured. Two more Cooper’s Hawks were captured but the mesh size was too large. They escaped. Two birding groups were present and several individuals wanted to volunteer. Given this success, I hope it can be maintained.” —Judd Howell, 1983 Banding Journal HESE TWENTY -TWO -YEAR -OLD NOTES by But today, the GGRO is at another promising beginning, GGRO’s founder Judd Howell suggest the at the turning of a grand corner. Our two decades of T possibility that the initial seeds of this banding hawk monitoring and banding have made for large, good program at Pt. Diablo (now known as Hawk Hill) could quality datasets. It is time for us to harvest these data, to grow to be a successful long-term project. They also fore - investigate their meaning, to present and publish results. cast the eventual reality of a community and volunteer We have data on the rate of raptors seen over Hawk Hill, driven raptor study. Some hawks would be trapped; some on band recovery locations, on causes of mortality in would not. Traps would be reviewed and revised. Part - various species. We have data on radiotracked flight nerships and friendships, like Judd and Will’s, would paths, speeds, and styles. We have data on human biases engender much creative dialogue and many advances in in raptor identification, on Robolure effectiveness, and banding, hawkwatching, and radiotracking at the Golden on urban nesting. Gate. Amazingly, two of the “individuals” who wanted Although the GGRO has been about taking the pulse of to volunteer that autumn day were Buzz Hull and his ten- raptor migration today, we clearly need to add a new task: year-old son Josh. Yes, that’s Buzz Hull, GGRO Research analyzing and publishing our existing datasets. It is an Director, and Josh Hull, doctoral student at UC Davis, essential component of our work; the scientific process is studying raptor ecology, diseases, and genetics. not complete until we publish our data. However, this “I hope it can be maintained,” Judd wondered on paper, will be a new road for us, and —like Judd in 1983 —it is and today I can smile knowingly at his very real concerns my turn to wonder what will happen. I’m choosing to be of 1983. Who could have known what the political and optimistic. financial winds would bring? Who could have imagined Last winter, in honor of the GGRO’s twentieth year, Buzz the level of responsibility and devotion these volunteers and I announced the start of our Data Analysis and Pub - would bring? Fortunately, the GGRO has been superbly lication (DAP) Campaign. The DAP campaign is our first maintained with an unprecedented level of cooperation intensive effort to analyze, publish, and present a large between NPS staff, Conservancy staff, and more than amount of GGRO banding, hawkwatching, and radio - 1,300 volunteers. Since the mid-’80s, we have been tracking data. It’s not as though we’ve been completely focused on methodical data collection, monitoring rap - quiet in this area; GGRO staff, volunteers, and interns tors consistently, refining our field techniques, and train - have delivered more than fifty scientific presentations ing new volunteers. 3 PACIFIC RAPTOR REPOR T since 1984. We’ve had a handful of publications appear in But as the year moves on, we will have to consider how print. However, our databases are thick with raptor infor - to make a bigger dent. How can we raise more funds to mation, and it’s time to analyze them more completely. more widely distribute our results? How can we obtain an endowment that would pay for a staff biologist who With an initial gift from the Earthfriends Foundation, we could work closely with Buzz on data analysis—not just asked our most devoted investors, our GGRO volunteers, for 2005 or 2006, but as an ongoing activity? Shouldn’t to give to the new DAP fund, and the response was in - we be constantly turning out stories, qualitative or quan - credible. By May 1, 2005, we had received nearly $25,000 titative, about the lives of hawks in this new century? from more than eighty GGRO volunteers. Not only do Absolutely. And given the way the phone rings here at these amazing volunteers give blood, sweat, and tears for GGRO, and the number of daily email requests for infor - birds of prey; they also open their wallets for them! mation about birds of prey we receive, the need is high. Thanks to these charter DAP donors, all of whom are list - So, whether you are a GGRO volunteer, a donor, friend, ed on page 42, we will be able to take our first big steps or colleague, please consider helping the GGRO turn this on DAP over the coming year. We will upgrade comput - grand corner, from data collection to data analysis and ers and software, prepare our banding and radiotracking publication. Your support is essential to our success. data for mapping and analysis, and take training courses Donations can be made out to “GGRO” but should be in Arcview and other software. We will buy time from specified as in the memo space as “DAP Fund.” Also, if biologists and statisticians to organize and refine our you have ideas about broader sources of funds from datasets, help prepare analyses, and do literature searches. foundations, agencies, or corporations, please call or These steps will move us toward some sixteen analyses we write me at (415) 331-0730 or [email protected] . have outlined from our current research areas. THE AGE STRUCTURE OF AUTUMN RAPTORS IN THE MARIN HEADLANDS A COMPARISON OF DECADES Buzz Hull BACKGROUND best path to a suitable wintering ground. Such birds wan - der until they encounter a barrier to further “off-course” URING THE FALL MOVEMENT OF RAPTORS movement, such as the coastline. The result is an accu - through the Marin Headlands, the age ratio is mulation of young birds along the coast. Dheavily skewed toward juvenile birds. This “coastal effect” was first described by C. J. Ralph for Such mistakes in orientation and movement may well passerines (Ralph 1971) and is seen at both East and West lead to increased mortality among those juveniles who Coast migration stations over a wide range of avian taxa. show these tendencies, with the surviving adults being those individuals who have managed to achieve the This juvenile-biased age ratio is not generally seen at in - correct orientation and direction of movement. land sites and is thought to be the result of disorientation or maladaptive genetic makeup, particularly among HAWKWATCH AGES VS. BANDING AGES passerine species that migrate nocturnally. Young birds The GGRO Hawkwatch records a little more than 90% who have not previously made the fall journey may not juvenile Sharp-shinned and Cooper’s Hawks, and about have adequate genetically fixed orientation to follow the 4 2004 64% juvenile Red-tailed Hawks, the three most frequently band - ed species at the GGRO. Band - ing numbers are even more strongly skewed toward juvenile raptors, with almost 95% of these three species being juve - niles in most banding seasons. We can speculate why the trapping results are even more strongly biased toward juveniles: n Perhaps the trapping methods appear more artificial and trou - blesome to experienced adults than to naïve juveniles. I am reminded of the comment of the son of one of our banders when he first saw a trapping station: “You’ve got to be kid - ding. How can you possibly fool any raptor with that!?” n Perhaps we are seeing the same adult Redtails repeatedly, either AN ADULT RED-TAILED HAWK WING CAN SAY A LOT. SCAN THE UNDERWING VIEW OF THE FULL WING ABOVE. THE local breeders or post-breeding SHORTER FLIGHT FEATHERS WITH A THINNER DARK BAND NEAR THEIR ENDS ARE JUVENILE FEATHERS, KEPT AFTER dispersing adults. After a pass THE HAWK GOES THROUGH ITS FIRST MOLT. THIS TELLS US THAT THIS REDTAIL WAS HATCHED IN THE PREVIOUS YEAR, AND IS NOW A LITTLE MORE THAN ONE YEAR OLD. THE BOTTOM LEFT SHOWS ONE OF THESE JUVENILE FEATHERS.