Storms Brewing

This week, over 10 inches of snow was dumped about 5,000 ft in the Blues/Wallowa Mountains. This first sign of winter is probably here to stay and that means a whole new collection of raptors are dribbling into the Washington or Oregon. During Week 17, we had 28 observations submitted. Not great but better than last week.

Observation of the Week goes to @sphyrapicus for submitting our first arctic species, a juvenile Rough-legged Hawk. A common winter visitor, you can often find these hawks hovering over fields like a kestrel. They can be discerned by other Buteos but the carpal patches on the underwings and the fully feathered feet. Keep an eye out for them, they're going to be all over.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/139998367

We also broke the 800-observation mark for this project. This means we are just 100 shy of our 2020 totals. So, keep those observations going, find some cool raptors and I'll be submitting a monthly report at the end of the weekend.

Publicado el 29 de octubre de 2022 por birdwhisperer