Diario del proyecto Inland Pacific Northwest Raptor Migration 2022

Top Five Species (September):

1. Red-tailed Hawk -- 64 observations
2. Turkey Vulture -- 51 obs
3. Swainson's Hawk -- 33 obs (+1)
4. Osprey -- 14 obs (-1)
5. American Kestrel -- 13 obs (new to Top 5)

Top Five Species (Overall):

1. Red-tailed Hawk -- 140 observations
2. Turkey Vulture -- 103 obs (+1)
3. Osprey -- 80 obs (-1)
4. Swainson's Hawk -- 65 obs
5. Great Horned Owl -- 39 obs

Total Species: 25

Top Five Observers (Obs):

1. birdwhisperer -- 194 obs
2. @draginous -- 68 obs
3. @cgates326 -- 35 obs
4. @danithedeer -- 24 obs
5. @davedrum -- 17 obs

Top Five Observers (Species):

1. birdwhisperer -- 13 species
2. cgates326 -- 11 species
3. draginous -- 10 species
4. danithedeer -- 8 species
5. davedrum -- 7 species

Species Still Not Observed: White-tailed Kite, Rough-legged Hawk, Flammulated Owl, Snowy Owl, Northern Hawk-Owl, Spotted Owl, Barred Owl, Short-eared Owl, Boreal Owl and Gyrfalcon -- 10 left

Species Added in September: Broad-winged Hawk, Barn Owl and Merlin

Counties Needing Observations: WA (4) -- Douglas, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin

News and Updates:

That's right, Week 13 is officially over, so it's time to summarize what went down in the past seven days. In ways of observations, this week was a far cry from last week with only 48 observations being submitted. On the other hand, take a look at the below-linked observation. That Turkey Vulture officially marks the 100th vulture photographed in this year's project. The reason why this is so significant is because this is the first time ever, excluding Red-tailed Hawk, a raptor species obtained over 100 observations in a single season. This makes sense considering Turkey Vultures is the dominate species over HawkWatch. This September, Lucky Peak in Idaho recorded over 1,000 different vultures migrating and surpassed any other raptor species!

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/137113969

As much as the aforementioned observation is cool, I don't think it quite has the flare to be observation of the week. And besides I really like the photo @fishaspey got of a juvenile Broad-winged Hawk in Wallowa County, Oregon. This is our 7th Broad-winged Hawk reported to the project this year, and this just further solidifies my opinion that these small, compact Buteos are not rare but annual, you just need to be in the right place to see them. To further prove my opinion, Lucky Peak got a whomping 140 Broad-wings this year, including a kettle of 42 birds! You can see the observation here:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/136704872

Observation of the Month goes to @shearwater13 since this is going to be the last time I can highlight a Swainson's Hawk. Photographed in Walla Walla, Washington, this dark morph juvenile can only be described as one of the coolest hawks out there. You can see the observation here:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/136242191

I'd like to send a huge shoutout to those who were photographing birds in Oregon this month. For the second year in a row, we've acquired an observation for every single county in Oregon and we did it all within the first half of the project. If we can get the remaining Washington counties, we can end the year with an observation in all 38 counties.

I also want to talk about the observation count for the project. We have completed three months of the project, only three more remain. We are currently sitting at 615 observations, so we are on a current pace to end the year at 1,230. This projected number is just shy of our 2021 totals and a potential record-breaking year. I'm sure we can do it but those are the numbers.

Fourteen weeks have passed since this project started, and in the past seven days, 62 reports came in from 15 species. Some migratory species are still going strong, but we are also seeing an uptick in owl sightings, and I'd like to keep that going.

The observation of the week without a doubt goes to @shearwater13 for finding one of our rarest species. This amazing raptor is the Boreal Owl, seen in Columbia County, Washington. This observation in every way makes me envious since I found one myself last year in Oregon (the first sighting in the Oregon Blues since 2001) but my Boreal only sang twice, or in other words, no way I could make an RG iNat sighting. Future observers swung by and were also unsuccessful in getting a recording of the skewing owl. But this observation, surpasses all of my expectations and hopes. And now I'm itching to do some owling!

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/137815189

Week 15 brought us 56 observations from 11 species. This pushes the total project observation count to 749. If we continue at this pace, we'd break our 2020 observations count in three weeks. But I say let's we get ambitious. Let's get to 929 by the end of the month!

In regard to the Observation of the Week, I've chosen to spotlight @redband_ and his photo of an intermediate morph Red-tailed Hawk in Kittias County, Washington. I wanted to showcase this because the photo is absolutely fantastic and can be used as a great example to differentiate juvenile intermediate morph Harlan's and Westerns (ssp. calurus). This is a really tough pair to discern but id comes down to two features: the fingers and the tail banding.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/138170151

1. Harlan's intermediate/dark morph typically have white emarginated primaries (or fingers) with barring on the tips. Western Red-tails always have black primaries. Though this feature will not always guarantee a correct id (due to individual variation), it can resolve about 90% of disputes.

Harlan's:
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/398438851
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/30995091
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/189423231

Western:
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/188961501
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/178043761
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/241040371

1. Tail pattern is super important for a Harlan's. The variation in Harlan's tail is quite a bit more than in Western, but Harlan's almost always have, wavy or slanted tail bands with white "webbing" in the inner margins. Take a look at these tails:

Harlan's:
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/440886631
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/327964681
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/319094701

Western:
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/321147631
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/321146441
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/245729861

Though we haven't gotten a Harlan's for the project yet, they are coming, and I hope you guys get to see some. They are, in my humble opinion, one of the coolest raptors in the world, and it's so unfortunate it's a subspecies of the Red-tailed. But I guess that's why we dream right?

Only 22 observations made an appearance in Week 16. This is a little below my expectations since October is supposed to be one of our best months.

Observation of the Week goes to @redband_ for an absolutely fantastic photo of a Western Screech-Owl in Kittitas County, Washington. Though this is only the fourth observation for the project, screech-owls are rather common and are often seen in any riparian habitat. Try looking for some and you'll likely find them.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/139202135

The last full week of October is ahead of us, let's finish off strong. Find some raptors, photograph them and let's get Rough-legged Hawk added to the list this coming week.

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.