December Medford Raptor Run

[anneg...@gmail.com]

Bob Hunter, Frank Lospalluto, Kathy Lehrer, and Anne Goff completed the Medford run on Saturday December 6. As always, we had an enthusiastic group diligently scouring the skies and lands for birds, but some numbers seemed low (particularly for the Red-tailed Hawks.) Nonetheless, we still got some good birds including a repeat of the beautiful partially leucistic Red-tailed Hawk on Agate Road (between Mountain View and Linn Road). We suspect it is a female because a smaller, more typically colored, Red-tail was in the same tree. She was considerably larger (or perhaps all of the white on her made her stand out!) We also saw the Ferruginous Hawk on Ramsey Road, a lovely repeat visitor. Oh...and another standout moment was when we saw a large, densely clustered herd of elk at the intersection of 140 and Riley Road.

Totals for the day:

Red-tailed Hawk: 53

American Kestrel: 48

Northern Harrier: 8

Bald Eagle-adult: 2

Golden Eagle: 1

Red-shouldered Hawk: 2

Ferruginous Hawk: 1

Merlin: 1

Prairie Falcon: 1

Cooper's Hawk: 2

Barn Owl: 1

Happy birding, happy holidays and enjoy your  Christmas Bird counts (if you are participating!)

Anne