Nooksack Winter Raptor Survey - December 2024

[Stephen Chase]

Hello Whatcom Birds,

Today my son Josiah and I completed the December 2024 edition of the ECAS Winter Raptor Survey, covering the "Nooksack" route, which includes the Nooksack and Sumas River floodplains in the northeast quadrant of the lowland county.

Let's begin at the end. Our survey finishes at the Mosquito Lake Road bridge in Welcome. Bald Eagles congregate there in late December looking for dead and dying salmon. We counted 132 eagles (80 adults, 52 sub-adults) in just this stretch alone. Eagles had already been prevalent throughout the survey, so we finished the survey with an impressive 211 Baldies. Twice we found groups of juveniles riding thermals along Sumas Mountain, and often 5-10 together in cottonwood trees along the Nooksack River. Red-tailed Hawks (19) were regular throughout the survey, and notably concentrated throughout the Kamm Creek floodplain between Lynden and Everson. We found 9 American Kestrels, including three male-female pairs near each other. We also exactly one of each of the following: Northern Harrier, Sharp-shinned Hawk, Cooper's Hawk, Peregrine Falcon. The peregrine was notable in that it had freshly-caught live prey in its talons near the top of a cottonwood. It was hard to know for sure, but it looked like the struggling victim was a Rock Pigeon. Our grand total for the day: 243 raptors - smashing our previous all-time high of 146!

Our non-raptor target was the local celebrity Whooper Swan on Jones Road in the Sumas prairie area. We missed it, and then heard later that it was there all along - perhaps just tucked behind a slope we couldn't see over, and on the Canadian side of the border. We ran into a few birders looking for it as well, so hopefully they were able to see it. However, we stopped for some time to enjoy a mass of perhaps 500 Trumpeter Swans on Telegraph Road just south of Sumas, working unharvested blow-down cornstalks and making quite a ruckus. 

As always, we very much enjoyed driving the county roads looking for birds!

In Everson,

Stephen Chase

[Andrea Warner]

In seeing Stephen and Josiah's results, here are some much different numbers from my territory (Lynden West) for the December ECAS Winter Raptor Survey.  My territory is well west of Stephen's, west of the Guide,  and encompasses a lot of berry fields and acres and acres of grass.  Bald Eagle totals of 14 were very low compared to the past three  years, as were Red Tail Hawks at 9.  The low Eagle numbers can be attributed to the abundant chum run on the Nooksack where they are currently gathering, but that doesn't explain the low Red Tail Hawk numbers.  Our Kestrel (3) and Harrier (2) numbers, were in the normal range. But no Accipiters were spotted.   Our total of 27 raptors was really pitiful, our lowest count for all Decembers.  January's numbers will be critical to show if this territory is still experiencing a decrease in numbers.  

Andrea Warner

Fairhaven

[Pauline Sterin]

Hi all,

We did our December survey today and Red-tailed Hawk, American Kestrel and Bald Eagle numbers were in line with previous Decembers. 

Pauline

On Dec 26, 2024, at 3:26 PM, Andrea Warner <ajwarn...@gmail.com> wrote:

In seeing Stephen and Josiah's results, here are some much different numbers from my territory (Lynden West) for the December ECAS Winter Raptor Survey.  My territory is well west of Stephen's, west of the Guide,  and encompasses a lot of berry fields and acres and acres of grass.  Bald Eagle totals of 14 were very low compared to the past three  years, as were Red Tail Hawks at 9.  The low Eagle numbers can be attributed to the abundant chum run on the Nooksack where they are currently gathering, but that doesn't explain the low Red Tail Hawk numbers.  Our Kestrel (3) and Harrier (2) numbers, were in the normal range. But no Accipiters were spotted.   Our total of 27 raptors was really pitiful, our lowest count for all Decembers.  January's numbers will be critical to show if this territory is still experiencing a decrease in numbers.  

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[Adena Mooers]

That is good news to me. It implies that there is still food enough to maintain the populations.

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[Pamela Borso]

Hi,

We did ours on Friday

13 Red Tails

1 Kestral

1 Harrier

11 Bald eagles

Numbers down across the board and across the years. Glad they are all in Stephen’s area

Pam

On Dec 29, 2024, at 2:34 PM, Pauline Sterin <pste...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all,

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