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INSTITUTE FOR FIELD ORNITHOLOGY

2007 IFO Raptors of the Rio Grande Valley Report

Instructor: Bill Clark • 8-13 April 2007 • McAllen, Texas

The IFO workshop participants and instructor met on Sunday evening in our hotel to get acquainted, hear an overview of the week's activities, and see Bill's PowerPoint presentation: 'Raptors of the Rio Grande Valley'. They learned that the Valley is one of the best places in the US to see spring raptor migration and has a variety of Neotropical raptors not found in most of the US and Canada.

On Monday after breakfast, the group met again for the first PowerPoint lecture on raptor ID: 'Introduction to Raptor ID'. Bill talked about the different kinds of raptors, field marks, how raptors appear under different lighting conditions, and other ID topics. We didn't go raptor watching this morning, as it was raining. Instead we went to Estero Llano Grande Park and watched birds from a covered patio. We saw a perched, wet Red-tailed Hawk on our way there. After lunch at a Luby's cafeteria, we went to Anzalduas County Park to see if any raptors were flying. It was still overcast, but the rain had stopped. Many Broad-wings were perched out in the open, allowing us good looks at them. But as the clouds cleared, we witnessed many Broad-winged Hawks taking to the air to continue their migrations north. Later in the afternoon, we went to Bentsen Park to see if any migration was happening there and watch for any raptors coming to perch. There was a trickle and a few came down to perch.

Bill caught and banded a juvenile Broad-winged Hawk in the afternoon not far from the park. It was a thrill for all to see this magnificent raptor up close and also to see it fly away. At the end of the day he caught an adult Harris's Hawk, which was already banded. Bill had banded it about 2 two years before in nearly the same location.

During this first day we saw many other raptors, including Merlin, Peregrine, Osprey, Turkey and Black Vultures, and White-tailed Kite. The kite was a local.

Tuesday morning we had two PowerPoint lectures: review of the ID of many species and more complete coverage of the four kites and an exhaustive discussion on separating perched and flying Sharp-shinned and Cooper's Hawks. After this, we went to the new tower at Santa Ana NWR to watch for raptors. We saw many, including good looks at Mississippi Kites. We practiced separating Cooper's and Sharp-shinned Hawks, as we saw several of each. A Red-shouldered Hawk was calling as it soared, and we saw a distant soaring Hook-billed Kite, the best hawk of the day. Many Broad-wings and a few Swainson's Hawks flew directly over us. A Harris's Hawk family was building a nest next to the tower, but just out of sight. We saw the adults perched and flying by close. After lunch at another Luby's, we had a siesta in the hot middle of the day. After this we drove around looking for migration but found few migrating raptors. We saw several American Kestrels on the wires and a few Harris's Hawks and White-tailed Kites.

Wednesday morning after ID lectures, we went back to Anzalduas Park to watch raptor migration. We saw a fair, but sporadic, flight of the main migrants (Broad-winged and Swainson's Hawks and Turkey Vultures) and some of the other migrants. A northern Harrier and local Swainson's Hawks were seen hunting in the spillway. We adjourned for a picnic lunch near the Gray Hawk nest. The adult female was on the nest most of this time, occasionally uttering a call, which I took to be food begging. 'Where is that man of mine?' We spent some time looking at other birds after lunch and went looking for fields of raptors but found none. Often Swainson's Hawks will gather in a recently plowed or disked field at this time of year. We stopped several times during the week to watch a family of Harris's Hawks at a nest beside the road not far from our hotel. We returned to the park late in the day to observe some raptors coming to roost.

Thursday morning we left right after breakfast to head east toward the coast. Our first stop was at the nesting territory of a pair of Aplomado Falcons. There were there and put on a show for us. We also saw a few White-tailed Hawks. On our way to look for Tamaulipas Crows near the Brownsville airport, one sharp-eyed participant hollered 'Swallow-tailed Kite'. I immediately did a U turn and there it was, soaring in circles just over the trees. We followed it for a while, then watched it disappear as it headed north. We then found the pair of crows, which now appeared ready to nest. We went looking for more Aplomados and saw White-necked Ravens, which were quite different from the crows. And we saw lots of Harris's Hawks, often in groups, and a few Crested Caracaras. After lunch and more sightings of these raptors, we took a boat trip with George Colley. We saw an adult female Peregrine up close; it was perched on a channel marker and was very tame. We saw loads of great water birds, some up close. We were shown breeding Mangrove Warblers; these will be split from Yellow Warblers one of these days. After the boat ride, we went to the fallout location at the South Padre Island convention center and added to our species list. We had dinner on the island and returned back to McAllen quite late, but happy.

Friday morning found us back to the Santa Ana tower. We saw many of the same local and migrating raptors. After this we walked around the ponds and added some water birds. Lunch was again at a Luby's. After a siesta at the hotel, we drove the field looking for raptor concentrations; finding none. We had our farewell dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant.

All of the participants opted to go on the Saturday morning bonus hawk watch, which was at Bentsen Park. We saw a nice migration of raptors and had good looks at the local pair of Gray Hawks. Late in the morning we saw the week's best raptor: a juvenile light-morph Short-tailed Hawk, a vagrant in the RGV. It was in view for about 2 minutes, but a bit distant. This sight record has been accepted by the Texas Bird Record Committee. We returned to our hotel by noon to wrap up this IFO raptor workshop.

We had many and good looks at thousands of migrating raptors and saw most of the resident species well. We saw 23 species of raptors and a total of 127 species. The participants learned a lot about raptor identification and behavior, saw a great variety of raptors, many up close, and had many enjoyable interactions with their new field companions.

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