One way to find out that Band-tailed Pigeons are back!

[Joel Geier]

Unlike Fairchilds and others who get Band-tailed Pigeons as "feeder" birds, at our place north of Corvallis we mostly just see them as flyovers, especially in late spring and summer when they fly out from the Coast Range forests where they nest, to feed on ripening elderberries on the valley floor.

So I'd only seen one Band-tail so far this year, around the end of February when I was checking on a wing-tagged Red-tailed Hawk at E.E. Wilson Wildlife Area.

The hawk, with tags reading "HY" turned out to be a bird that was captured and "deported" from Portland International Airport. I was worried because I'd encountered this bird while on a walk, and it didn't fly even when I approached within 5 yards. I contacted Carole Hallett and here's what she said:

HY was caught at PDX on 24 September 2024 and released near Stayton the following day. Although it was indeed a hatch-year at the time of capture the code HY was merely the next in sequence.
.... It's possible the behavior you described is because the bird has become accustomed to attention. It is one of the most frequently reported wing-tagged redtails in the history of the project. Within days of release, it was sighted at Ankeny NWR by a group of birders.  It continued to be seen and photographed in the same area at least once weekly through December and at least one other person noted that the bird was very steady and easy to photograph. 

But I was worried enough to drive back over there to check. Seems like the hawk did eventually decide to fly on its own. But on my way back to the car, I noticed a Band-tailed Pigeon perched atop a conifer, north of Camp Adair Road in an old USFS experimental parcel.

That was the only Band-tailed Pigeon I'd seen all year, until this afternoon's storm front came rolling through. Just ahead of the storm, a flock of Band-tails came flying in over our yard and made a beeline for the stand of mature Douglas-firs up on Tampico Ridge.

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Joel Geier

Tampico Ridge north of Corvallis