And So It Begins . . . .

These past couple of weeks have brought some big changes at The Raptor Center.  Because of your support, we were able to raise the funds to begin our new construction of the Douglas Dayton Education Wing and outdoor bird housing.  Before the construction, however, we do have to tear down the old structures.

Where will the birds be during this time?  Half of our education winged ambassadors have been transferred to housing on the St Paul campus that was renovated thanks to our volunteers.  The birds have settled in well.  Some of the education birds will stay at The Raptor Center as they will still be part of our off-site programming efforts while we are in this transitional phase.  They are safely away from the noise and activity of destruction of our old bird housing. 

Our clinic patient birds remain in their usual areas; it is very quiet in the area of the building in which they are housed.  Traditionally, prior to release, the wild birds who are being reconditioned for release are housed outside.  Due to the destruction of this outdoor housing, they are now in several managed locations, and our staff and volunteers are continuing to oversee their care and treatment.

Yesterday and today the destruction of the old rehabilitation bird pens began!  We are happy to share some photos with you.  We were also pleased to note that all of the old building materials will be recycled!

We will continue to keep you updated on the progress!

This photo was taken from our loading dock; it shows the back
of our outdoor pens.

It did not take long for quite a bit of the housing to be torn down!

This photo was taken from a stairway in TRC that overlooks
the roofing of the outdoor bird housing.

Even though it was raining, the old housing was torn down quickly!

This is another angle of the outdoor housing, taken from another
stairway in TRC.

Raptor Migration Across the Country

We thought it would be fun to share raptor counts at four different location across the country: the Goshutes in NV, Golden Gate Raptor Observatory in CA, Hawk Ridge in MN, and Hawk Mountain in PA.  Each location has great information on their websites with blogs/interpretation as well as daily counts.  It's fun to compare and contrast what species and how many  are counted on any given day.

Golden Gate Raptor Observatory in San Francisco, CA

For Tuesday, Sept 30,
Total Sightings: 698
Total Species: 13

Species Counts:
Turkey Vulture: 40
Osprey: 1
White-tailed Kite: 1
Northern Harrier: 7
Sharp-shinned Hawk: 346
Cooper's Hawk: 109
Red-shouldered Hawk: 25
Broad-winged Hawk: 37
Swainson's Hawk: 1
Red-tailed Hawk: 80
American Kestrel: 2
Merlin: 2
Peregrine Falcon: 1



Goshutes in Nevada
This site had a Hawk-alypse September 26.  One of the biggest single count days on record for them! The sky sailed with 996 accipiters, followed by 679 buteos. They doubled their Swainson's hawk count in one day and saw 45 broad-winged hawks. Vultures came in third with 293, mostly kettles of 30 to 50 birds each and 203 falcons. And in the mix of hundreds of migrants, a Mississippi kite was spotted.

Hawk Ridge, Duluth, MN

A recap of Sept 23-30 
Most of the last week has been warm with clear skies and southerly winds, but good numbers of Sharp-shinned Hawks and other early season species have been moving through anyway, including 863 Sharp-shinned Hawks, 95 American Kestrels, and 16 Peregrine Falcons on the 28^th when the temperature hit 80 degrees!

Hawk Mountain, PA

This is one of the most well-known raptor migration spots.  Sept 26 had Sharp-shinned hawks and Broad-winged hawks making up two of their main species seen that day.