[Tweeters] "Translocating" Raptors (about those wing-tagged hawks, et al)

[Elaine Chuang]

Hoping this brings greater awareness to all, and inspires reports!

As many of you know, it is thanks to Bud Anderson’s initiative that Red-tailed Hawks and other raptors have been tagged at Sea-Tac since 2001.  Anderson and Osmek launched one of the first such programs to address bird-aircraft collisions, and of course thereby to reduce the impact on human and avian lives.  After a raptor is safely trapped on a runway, placing a federal leg band would be standard, but the colored wing tag with the large number (attached through the patagium) allows observant folks to gather useful information from a distance, such as was collected last month by Kerry Tremain, detailed by Bob O’Brien and at least viewed by David Hutchinson in March.  These tagged birds are ‘translocated’ 70-some miles away and released.  According to Bud, “very few of the translocated tagged red-tails, especially the juveniles, ever return to the airport, which is exactly what we were hoping for when we first started the program.”  P.S. Yellow tags indicate the bird was caught as an adult; light blue tags signify birds tagged as juveniles.    

Some resources: 
For the detail-oriented among you, here is an article from 2005 by Bud Anderson and Steve Osmek (of Sea-Tac airport):  “Raptor Strike Avoidance at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport: a biological approach”  https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=birdstrike2005  

Sea-tac Raptor Management Program: https://www.portseattle.org/programs/sea-airport-raptor-strike-avoidance-program <https://www.portseattle.org/programs/sea-airport-raptor-strike-avoidance-program>  (shows Steve Osmek)

Birdnote:  “Red-tails and Airports”  https://www.birdnote.org/listen/shows/red-tails-and-airports  (with a nice photo of Bud Anderson at work).

Other airports have followed suit:  
YVR (Vancouver, Canada) Red-tails (and Rough-legged) carry a single numbered WHITE tag.
PDX (Portland) Red-tails have an ORANGE numbered tag on both wings. 

If observed and especially when photographed, any ‘marked bird’ is great to report.  Besides contacting our local gurus at Urban Raptor Conservancy  https://urbanraptorconservancy.org/contact/  one may go more cosmic and report to the USGS through the North American Bird Banding Program:  https://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/BBL/bblretrv/   where there is comprehensive information about various auxiliary markers such as color bands and tags.  Wing tags alone, as contributed by Zora Monster, may be reported by email to  wingtaggedhawks at portseattle.org.

Cheers, all.  


Elaine … in Seattle
     elc at washington dot edu

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