The summer of 2015
The birds and I have been very busy this summer and we have had a few new additions. On 26 April, I picked up Mortimer our young male Harris Hawk. Mortimer has become a great asset to Adirondack Raptors. He loves to fly around…
The 14th kestrel season is almost finished.
With only 1 nest box that is still in question, the season has been a smashing success. We have already banded 237 kestrel chicks and 6 adults. We have banded 1523 chicks during the first 14 years and 1678 total kestrels banded during the first…
Extinction
“For one species to mourn the death of another species is a new thing under the sun.” – Aldo Leopold 1948. Leopold wrote this about the loss of the passenger pigeon in 1914. How many have we lost since and how many more are…
Children of Man in the 21st Century
Children of Man in the 21st Century The children of man have lost their sense of wonderment in this incredible world. They use to walk in the forest as part of the forest and were filled with a humble spirit, but today they have…
Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic
As an academic grandchild of Aldo Leopold, I have always been a huge fan of the man. He was decades ahead of his time. He is decades ahead of our time. My mentors, the Hamerstroms were students of Leopold. Frederick was Leopold’s only graduate…
Adirondack Raptors was part of Project Snowstorm
With the large eruption of snowy owls throughout the Northeastern United States banders scrambled to catch and band as many as possible in an effort to learn more about these amazing creatures. We banded 9 owls along the mighty St. Lawrence River and surrounding…
The 13th Kestrel Season is almost done
So far during our 13th kestrel season, we have banded 171 kestrel chicks and we still have 19 nest boxes that had eggs during the original check. Our all time high number of kestrel chicks banded in 1 season is 175 and we are…
The 2013 American Kestrel season is just about finished.
The St. Lawrence River Valley kestrel population is doing well on my 286,000 acre study area since we started our nest box study. In 2002 there were 51 kestrels and the population hit a high of 304 during the 2010 season and for the…
Twelfth American Kestrel Nest Box Management Season
The American kestrel was once believed to be an unshakeable pillar of the American (North, Central and South) ecosystems, but during the past few decades this pillar has been slowly eroded. It is believed that there are 1.2 million breeding pairs in North America…