Big Birds

Here in the city, one of the more delightful rites of spring is the University of Minnesota’s annual release of injured birds that have, over the winter, recuperated at the Raptor Center. This gala happens May 21 at Battle Creek Regional Park—just in time for the great raptor migration back north.

Serious raptor enthusiasts all over the world know about Hawk Ridge up in Duluth. They are especially familiar with the fall count in September, when tens of thousands of hawks, eagles, and falcons funnel through Duluth before heading south. They also know about the spring count, although it is less dramatic because of shifting, more disparate southwesterly winds. Just the same, up to four thousand broad-winged hawks will make their way back north through Duluth each day this month, along with red-tailed and rough-legged hawks, eagles, peregrines, and any other raptor you’d care to name.

Naturally, the biannual migration attracts lots of scientists. Last fall, I met up with one of them. His name is Frank Taylor, and he is a master bird bander from White Bear Lake. For three decades, Taylor has maintained a huge bird blind in a vacant field between Duluth and Two Harbors. The day I visited the nine-foot-by-four-foot, camouflaged blind, the atmosphere was tense and hushed, as a female harrier hawk checked out the lure behind an invisible net.
“She’s looking, she’s looking—aw, she’s turning toward the road,” Taylor said quietly, a note of disappointment in his voice. The six other occupants of the blind, including Channel 11’s “Bird Lady,” Sharon Stiteler, shifted their cramped positions and resumed their scan of the sky. The blind is an unassuming shed built more for science than for comfort. It has a pitched roof to shed snow, and its fence-post skeleton is weathered gray, blending nicely into the woods behind it. A three-inch gap in the boards at eye level allows a panoramic view of the north to northeast skyline; and overturned milk crates accommodate the bottoms of as many visitors as will fit inside.

Thanks to a federal bird-banding permit, which he has had for thirty-three years, Taylor captures birds of prey during the yearly migration and provides statistics for the Bird Banding Laboratory of the U.S. Geological Survey. What does Taylor do with the birds he snares? First, he notes whether the bird has already been banded. “I take care so as not to injure the bird,” Taylor said. He typically cradles the hawk, then barks rapid-fire orders to his helpers to hand him a band—an alloy circle imprinted with a serial stamp and sized for every genus of hawk and falcon. Next, he measures wingspan and tail length, and assesses the bird’s general health. When he’s on a roll, Taylor can band up to sixty birds a day.

Information gathered by banders is used to measure bird populations and communities and the life spans of individual birds, and to study dispersal and migration. There are only two thousand master banders in the United States, and Taylor is proud to be one of them. The practice requires dedication and expert handling skills.

Everyone in the blind held his breath as a passing red-tail spotted the lure, a little furry bauble that mimics injured prey. The hawk circled in to get a better view, and decided to check things out on the ground. Out came the “landing gear” (as banders call the outstretched talons—even a novice can see they look like a 747 approaching an airfield) and the dihedral guided it down. Then, surprise! The net dropped and the blind burst into action.—Jaime Benshoff