We completed our 3rd and last monthly volunteer Winter Raptor Survey for HMANA 3 days ago for the 2022-2023 season covering the same route each time in the area from Rocky Mountain Arsenal NWR Wildlife Drive to Barr Lake colloquially known as DIA Raptor Alley. With winter progressing into February, even more raptors have moved down into the area. We saw and identified 110 Raptors, the most we’ve seen this winter season in a day. Ferruginous Hawk. 23 Prairie Falcon 2 Rough-legged Hawk 2 Golden Eagle 2 Bald Eagle 29 Northern Harrier 23 American Kestrel 8 Red-tailed Hawk 21 14 of the 23 Ferruginous Hawk, 1 Prairie Falcon and both Golden Eagle were seen along the Wildlife Drive at Rocky Mountain Arsenal NWR. We met our daughter and grandchildren at Lake Mary at the NWR for a few minutes – they were there coincidentally on an outing. Our 7 year old grandson Oliver who loves hawks found and identified a distant Kestrel on a wire and 2 BE in the sky that I needed binoculars to see. His 4-year-old sister not to be outdone found us what turned out to be a distant soaring adult Golden Eagle! While we have seen Rough-legged Hawk and Golden Eagle yearly in New York where we lived for the past 50 years before moving to Denver in July 2022, the only Ferruginous Hawk we had ever seen in New York was in the winter of 2020-20 when 1 spent the winter there – the 1st ever in New York State, so these FH sightings were spectacular for us in Colorado, also very exciting the Prairie Falcon, also a Western bird. You can see what we found on our previous 2 WRS along the same route at https://wrs.hmana.org/public_html/index.php as well as another current route in Colorado – the new Nunn Raptor Alley route conducted by Robert Beauchamp, as well as other routes throughout the country. In addition we do 2 other WRS routes in the Boulder area, one of which we completed yesterday and which result I have entered into the HMANA WRS website, and will complete the last one within the week. Ajit & Liza Antony Central Park, CO (which used to be called Stapleton) -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en?hl=en * All posts should be signed with the poster's full name and city. Include bird species and location in the subject line when appropriate * Join Colorado Field Ornithologists https://cobirds.org/CFO/Membership/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/2baa969a-b3aa-400b-9953-d73afadd3566n%40googlegroups.com.
