Our 3rd Winter Raptor Survey for HMANA in Colorado

[aiant...@gmail.com]

My wife Liza and I conducted our 3rd Winter Raptor Survey (WRS) for the Hawk Migration Association of North America (HMANA) 2 days ago in Colorado, after moving here 5 months ago from New York where I had had 3 different WRS routes that we completed 3 times in winter – every December, January and February since 2015.

On our 2nd survey a week ago we had had only 2 Bald Eagle, 7 American Kestrel and 11 Red-tailed Hawk.

I noticed that Robert Beauchamp created and conducted a new Winter Raptor Survey for HMANA along the Nunn, CO Raptor Alley in the past week with good results.

You can see his as well as our results, as well as all the other WRSs conducted in the country. You can also see our results from New York where the two of us were responsible for 4 of the 5 yearly WRSs conducted in New York State:

https://wrs.hmana.org/public_html/index.php

We saw a total of 53 raptors 2 days ago:

Red-tailed Hawk        26

Ferruginous Hawk     5 – all adult

Bald Eagle                   5 – all adult

Northern Harrier        1

American Kestrel       11

Golden Eagle              5 – 3 adult, 2 juvenile

We will be doing all 3 routes again in January and February 2023.

Any raptor enthusiast can do a Winter Raptor Survey on their own. It is a volunteer program. You create your own route and follow it exactly the same way each time. If you’re interested in doing one, the best way to figure out where to create your route is to look at eBird data for the past 1-5 years for the location you are interested in – look up sightings for FH, RL, and GE – which will give you the likelihood you will see numbers of individuals of wintering species.

You can get general Information about the WRS program at https://www.hmana.org/winter-raptor-survey/

If anyone is interested in starting their own route and needs advice or help, please feel free to email me, as one birder from Boulder did already.

Ajit I Antony

Central Park, Colorado