Nicole and Bryce recently teamed up with a good friend of the project, Sylvain Bourdages, in Grande Prairie, Alberta for a week of exciting field work. An isolated patch of agricultural land surrounded by dense boreal forest, this area is a famous stopover for an incredible diversity and abundance of Red-tailed Hawks. At least, it is in a normal year! Sylvain has lived in the region two decades now, and has noticed that birds not only arrived later than usual, but were also relatively scarce overall this spring.
But in spite of the unusually quiet backroads, the week was a great success with twelve new transmitters deployed on an excellent suite of fascinating phenotypes. Now we eagerly wait to see where these birds will go to breed this summer!
Red-tailed Hawk Project 