TrackingTalons

This year the Swainson's hawks in our area seem late. Probably a week behind most years on average. This guy is only around 3 weeks post-hatch.

Revenge!

Hey entomology Twitter, can anyone tell me about this penstemon pollinator in Northern California?

Sometimes nature conspires to prevent you from doing your work. Like when this giant swallowtail showed up on this phlox in the yard. Loved seeing the airfoil form in its wings in slow motion.

We tagged her as a nestling in 2017 and we're hoping to learn about recruitment. Well, I guess she's teaching us. Most individuals are nest building, and a number have already laid eggs. This bird still hasn't figured out which state she wants to be in.

So this Swainson's hawk should be setting up to breed for the first time this year. She's not... She's all over the place. The yellow circle (top center) represents the average territory size in this population.

She's alive! She may be the oldest known living Swainson's Hawk. Fledged in 1998, she started breeding in 2000. She seems to be on her third mate - or at least her second mate hasn't shown up yet and she was mating with her next-door neighbor. Did she break up another pair??

However, this February farmers found him in a field in Tolima, Colombia. He was tired, but otherwise healthy and released after this picture. That means he made it down to South America from California, back to North America, and back down to South America. 2/3

This is blue A9 - he was the last Swainson's hawk fledged in 2019. He fledged a month later than most. He likely only had a couple of weeks. I didn't think he had any real chance of making it through even his first migration. 1/3

Here's the age distribution we had of known age breeding swainsons hawks in 2019 in our population. I think this is probably as good a representation of buteo ages as we have in a wild population. Shows you pretty well nailed it.

Two Swainson's hawks born two years apart from the same California population. Followed the same migration route up. Both hanging out south of Yuma, AZ. Could it be love??

Two Swainson's hawks born two years apart in the same population. They spent the winter (mostly) apart, but are following the same migration route back north. 2 nights ago they roosted within a few hundred yards of each other.