Great horned owlets

GHOW (great horned owl) case # 12-079 and its sibling case # 12-080 were barely 10 days old when they hit their first bump in the road of life.  Both owlets fell out of their nest located in a Spruce tree in Minneapolis and landed unharmed despite falling 45 feet.  Great horned owls don’t build their own nests or even remodel the old crow or hawk nests they move into, so often youngsters come out prematurely due to nest instability.  High spring winds often give them an extra push.  Even though great horned owl parents will raise their babies on the ground, since these two  were so young and the nest located in an urban setting, TRC decided to enlist the help of Jim Mussell, a professional tree climber and long-time volunteer at TRC, to fix the nest and replace the youngsters.  One owl parent observed the scene as its babies were lifted to their new “digs”.

TRC Clinic Census April 25

Our clinic patient census as of April 25:

We have received 138 patients so far this year.  We currently have 36.

Eagles
Bald eagle   12

Hawks - Buteos
Red-tailed hawk   11
Rough-legged hawk   1

Hawks - Accipiters
Cooper's Hawk   1

Falcons
Peregrine falcon   3
American kestrel   2

Owls
Great horned owl   6

Spring Raptor Release

Saturday, May 5 is our Spring Public Raptor Release!  The time is from 11am-2pm, with program starting at 12 noon.  It is at Hyland Lake Park Reserve, in Bloomington, MN.   If you have a Google account, you can put the event into your own calendar!  We have an event page on Facebook - let us know if you are coming, and we'd love to hear if you have or haven't been there, and what your favorite part of the event is!

How You Can Help Raptor Babies

Great horned owls are the earliest nesting raptor species in MN, laying their eggs in old crow or hawk nests as early as the end of January. When owlets hatch and grow to about 2-3 weeks of age, the poor nest quality and high spring winds cause many youngsters to topple out.

How can you help?
1) If you find a baby/young raptor, please call TRC BEFORE intervening. It is often assumed that if a parent can’t be seen, the youngster has been abandoned. The adults are often close by keeping an eye on their kids, but are often well concealed from human eyes.

2)If you know of an active raptor nest, please let us know. If we do receive a youngster that is in need of a new raptor family, the more nests we are aware of, the better chance for a successful adoption.

Please help us provide Minnesota raptor babies with their best chance of survival by keeping them wild.

The Raptor Center's website has more information on how to help an injured raptor.  We post our clinic patient census numbers so you can see what species are in our clinic. 

Our Facebook Cover Photo Raptor Baby Species is . . .

A red-tailed hawk chick! Here is some more information about red-tails from our species webpage.

The Raptor Center has several red-tailed hawks who help us educate the public. Meet them!

The New York Times has set up a live-streaming camera on a red-tailed hawk nest on a 12th-floor window ledge outside of the office of the president of New York University.

Check back with us the week of April 30 for the next raptor baby species!

TRC Celebrates its Volunteers!

This is National Volunteer week! The Raptor Center’s 250 volunteers contribute an average of 900 hours each week. They volunteer in our clinic, flight crew, transport, education, Recycling for Raptors, work special events and even do carpentry, providing critical support for us. To say we couldn’t do it without them is truly an understatement. We are so proud and grateful for the dedication of these wonderful people and their desire to transform the world around us, one raptor or one person at a time.

National Volunteer Week is about “inspiring, recognizing and encouraging people to seek out imaginative ways to engage in their communities.” The Raptor Center shares this ideal of empowering people to work for change in their community, ensuring a healthier environment for raptors and the world we share. Stewardship starts with individuals connecting to the world around them and finding meaning there.

Peregrine cam at Red Wing, MN

Great article in the Red Wing Republican Eagle newspaper about the peregrines at the grain elevator and a webcam there! The Raptor Center works with Bob Anderson, of the Raptor Resource Project, for banding peregrine chicks for the Midwest Peregrine Society. The Raptor Resource Project has several nest cams, including one on Turkey Vultures, and the now-famous Decorah IA EagleCam!

Guess our Raptor Baby on Facebook

Go to our Facebook page, and guess the baby raptor species of our new Cover Photo! We will let you know "who" this is on Thursday!

Thirty Years of Peregrines in the Great Lakes States

Dr. Patrick Redig, co-founder and Director Emeritus of The Raptor Center, was recently quoted in a story about the thirty years of work on peregrine falcon recovery in the Great Lakes states. This story was in the Great Lakes Echo, Michigan State University Knight Center for Environmental Journalism.

Peregrine Camera downtown St Paul, MN

The Minnesota DNR Nongame Program are sponsoring a peregrine nest camera on the Bremer Building (formerly NorthCentral Life) in downtown St Paul, MN.

In 1987, a nesting box was placed on the east side of the building and was first used by a pair of falcons in 1988. Several pairs of falcons have chosen this site as their home, producing 61 chicks through 2011. This is the 9th year that the pair "Jill" and "Sota" have occupied the box. Sota hatched in 1994 and has been nesting since 1998. Despite missing two toes on each foot (probably due to frostbite), and being 17 years old, Sota has been able to provide enough food for himself, all of his offspring and his mate during incubation and early brooding of chicks. As of April 5th, 2012, the pair have laid four eggs. After about a 35-day incubation period, the chicks should hatch on around May 5th.

Public Spring Raptor Release May 5

Plan to come out and see The Raptor Center at our Spring Public Raptor Release! It is on Saturday May 5, at Hyland Lake Park Reserve in Bloomington, MN. Meet our education raptors, and bring your used ink jet printer cartridges for our Recycling for Raptors program.

WCCO story on Urban Bald Eagles

WCCO-TV mentioned The Raptor Center in a recent story on bald eagles in urban settings.

MPR story on urban eagles

Clinic Manager Lori Arent talked a bit about urban eagle populations on a recent MPR story.

Public Programs Today at TRC!

Don't forget - today, Friday, April 6, we have two public programs! At 11:00am and at 1:00pm, here at our location, we are offering Raptors of Minnesota programs, which we normally just offer on weekends. Adults are $7.50 and children $5.00. First come, first served with no RSPV's.

TRC Clinic Census April 2

The Raptor Center has received 104 wild patients so far this year. We currently have 40 patients.
Eagles
Bald eagle - 11

Hawks
Red-tailed hawk - 9
Red-shouldered - 1

Falcons
Peregrine falcon - 3
American kestrel - 1
Merlin - 1

Owls
Great horned owl - 10
Long-eared owl - 2
Eastern screech-owl - 1
Snowy owl - 1

Peregrine Falcon Cams

Peregrine falcons are currently incubating eggs in Minnesota. In some of the southern states, eggs are already hatching.

Nest cameras are great ways to be able to watch the daily lives of these magnificent birds. The Raptor Center is proud to have played an important part of the reintrodution of the peregrine falcon in the midwest. You can read more about the Midwest Peregrine Project background here.

The Raptor Center has several education peregrines that are winged ambassadors for their wild counterparts. Your support with our Adopt a Raptor program helps us to care for them, and continue their work to remind us all how linked we are with the environment.

Eastern Screech-owls on TRC Facebook Cover

If you guessed Eastern Screech-owls as the baby raptor species on our Facebook Cover Photo, you were correct! Thank you to all who posted guesses and comments! Please watch for another photo the week of April 16.