Our transmitter efforts in 2025 focused primarily on expanding our knowledge of movement and plumage variation among Red-tailed Hawks in western North America. Our sampling predominately occurred during winter throughout the desert southwest of California, Arizona, and New Mexico and resulted in breeding origins from British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and a few resident (non-migratory) southwestern individuals. Desert southwest winter captures are numbered 5–20 in the above map. We also sampled wintering individuals from the Pacific Northwest (numbered 1–4 in the above map) resulting in two more harlani from Alaska and two non-harlani from British Columbia.
Genomic work is still pending, but we are particularly excited about our sampling of breeding locations from British Columbia where the breeding ranges of at least four subspecies meet: harlani, alascensis, calurus, and abieticola. British Columbia certainly represents an exciting frontier of genomic and plumage discovery, and we look forward to sharing future updates with everyone!
Thanks to the Holdfast Collective, Kidd Biological, Inc., Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and University of Idaho for supporting our transmitter efforts in 2025.
Red-tailed Hawk Project 