Spring is Here

   March 20th marked the official start of spring, creating anticipation among the project staff as we await the arrival of Broadwings back to Pennsylvania. Last year our returning tagged Broadwing, Abbo, made her way into PA on May 4th. 
   Two of our birds, Pocono Penny and Sadie, have already started their spring migration. Pocono Penny wintered in western Brazil, close to the border of Peru. Sadie, wintered in southeast Peru, and was the 2015 bird to travel the furthest south. We recently received a location for Chenango last week but she is still in El Salvador and has not made any northward movements. We are hoping that Ridgena's unit comes back on and that she will return this spring. Her last known location was east of the Magdalena River in Colombia on January 26th. Since our last post, we still have not heard from Rachel Carson. Her last location was back in early December, from her wintering location near El Naranjo, Nicaragua. We still believe that she died due to the signals received from her transmitter. 

Movements of 2015 tagged Broadwings as of 14 March 2016

   Once the birds have returned to their breeding grounds we will send out our staff and volunteers to confirm tagged and color banded individuals have returned. We will also do our best to locate the new nest tree for any territory where we worked in 2015. In addition to this work, we will be trapping four more adults in 2016. Our goal is to tag two individuals on or near Hawk Mountain Sanctuary as well as two in the Allegheny National Forest of northwest Pennsylvania. The ANF staff located 5 Broadwing nests last year, providing a head start at locating nests and territories for this year.  

Be sure to check in on our northbound migrants at Broadwing Tracking Maps
Also do not forget to Like us on Facebook at The Broad-winged Hawk Project