As you’ve heard me say (write?!) many times, find the food in the winter … find the birds. Exactly 24 hours later I refound my Ruffed Grouse and Red-Tailed Hawk in the same exact trees. The grouse will continue to use the this berry tree till the fruit is gone, and the hawk must have found good hunting. Even with raptors, winter will find them hunting from the same spots as long as prey holds out. The key is birds do not want to use any extra energy during cold winter days.

One interesting observation, unlike songbirds which tend to grab berries and pluck the entire piece of fruit off a tree, grouse pick the fruit off a tree where the stem attaches to the branch. Thus, grouse grab the stem, pluck, and then must flip the fruit into their mouth.

A bonus was finding a cooperative Rough Legged Hawk … in a secret location (LOL!)

There is a neat project that tracks Rough Legged Hawks via GPS devices. This relatively new banding technology really helps us understand birds and their breeding / migration patterns. Our hope is to band some Northern Hawk Owls us at Sax-Zim Bog with this technology this winter.

• Rough Legged Hawk Project (map for one bird over three years)
• Teton Raptor Center

One bird’s paths over three years … It is amazing how far this hawk ranged through the Arctic.