Nooksack Winter Raptor Survey - March 2026

[Stephen Chase]

Hello Whatcom Birds,

Joined today by my close friend Jeremy, Josiah and I completed our final winter raptor survey for the 2025-2026 season. Our route covers the northeast quadrant of lowland Whatcom County from Everson to Sumas to Deming. Flooded fields and roads were a theme for today's survey. Three times we were forced to detour around closed roads, and several other times crawled through flooded roadways.

March is an optional survey for the ECBA Wintor Raptor Survey program. Because it's shoulder season, we anticipated smaller raptor numbers, and so it was. Our "Big Three" species, Red-tailed Hawks (10), American Kestrels (6), and Bald Eagles (36) were all well below average. Likely many have begun migrating already, but certainly many are sitting on nests, which essentially drops our odds of seeing these raptors by half or more. In fact, all six kestrels we spotted were males - the females were likely all tucked away inside their nest boxes and tree cavities. That said, we picked out several pairs of eagles on or near their nests. Other raptors seen today included three Northern Harriers, two Cooper's Hawks and one Merlin. Our final total of 58, while just over half our survey average of 102, was actually our best March survey to date.

Ducks were abundant today, enjoying all the extra available wetlands. We picked out 12 different species of waterfowl while driving by. Four Western Meadowlarks were spotted in the Sumas Prairie area. They will be gone soon, off to their breeding territories east of the Cascades. We also found four Turkey Vultures kettling along the slopes of Sumas Mountains. Yes, they're raptors too - but this survey doesn't officially include vultures. We were still excited to see them back for the season!

After completing the survey, we stopped by a nearby woodland to pick up a trail camera Josiah set up a few weeks ago, curious to see what it had photographed. Take a look!

Stay tuned for a second post about my dawn chorus hike this morning.

In Everson,

Stephen Chase