Welcome to the Swainson's Hawk Watch

In April of 2010, a pair of wild Swainson's Hawks decided to nest in our neighborhood in Boise, Idaho. This "Hawk Watch" will attempt to record words and photographs describing the Hawks behaviors, including the hatching & fledgling of chicks over the spring and summer. Many others who live in the neighborhood also watched the daily activities of the hawks and used this blog to keep up on my own observations and photographs.

Note! May 6, 2011 Two Red-Tailed Hawks have settled on the old nest and appear to be laying on eggs now. See blog posts below.

Note! On March 12, 2011 two neighbors reported seeing a single hawk flying around and landing on the nest. Hopefully they will nest here again or nearby and we can continue the blog through 2011.
Note! Please Try to "Follow" the Blog and check in often. I am trying to update this site and the photo album at least once or twice a week. This page scrolls down to the blog entries below this introduction. The first blog entry you will see is the latest one. Scrolling the page down will reveal earlier posts in descending chronological order. And/or you can use the Blog Archive on the right side of the screen to see entries for May, through October 2010 and newer ones for 2011.
Please feel free to share this Blog with your family and friends. The URL you can email to them is:
http://swainsonshawkwatch.blogspot.com

Note ! I am posting "all" of the hawk images to an album in my Picasa Web account. Below is the web URL for that album. You can click on that hot link and/or also click on the Hawk lifting off branch photo to go to that album. As of October 3, there are 600 individual images in the album.

Note! When looking at a single photo in the album use the "full screen" icon for a larger, more impressive size!

Hawk lifting off branch

Hawk lifting off branch

Friday, March 18, 2011

Need to verify Hawk species coming to 2010 Swainson's Hawk nest.

I have been in communication with local Hawk research scientists about the Swainson's Hawk nest and reported to them yesterday that neighbors had been seeing at least one hawk visiting the old nest several times this past week.  However, I received the following message today noting that this would be a very early date for Swainson's Hawks to return to Boise and we should try to get a more positive identification.

Thanks, Gary.
We see many Swainson’s nests with local red-tails near them early in the year.
You might visit that site to determine whether or not the hawk in question is actually a Swainson’s. If so, March 12 is probably a record for early arrival.
Let me know. We appreciate your interest and good observations/photography of this species!
Bill    
Conservation Research Foundation
I have not yet seen any of the Hawks or been able to photograph one. I would like to ask any of the neighbors who see the hawks again to try to get a positive ID and a picture if possible.

FYI,  Here are links to photo ID sites for Red Tail Hawks and Swainson's Hawks from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology/ All About Birds web site.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)