If you’re looking for a sign of spring, head for the Pembina Valley and look up.
Each year thousands of hawks, eagles and other raptors travel down “raptor highway,” which runs above the Pembina Valley in southern Manitoba and northeastern North Dakota.
The spring migration of these majestic birds of prey also brings out another species – birdwatchers.
“There’s no other place in Manitoba that we know of that gets the numbers of raptors that go through here,” says Paul Goossen, a retired Canadian Wildlife Service biologist who co-ordinates an official raptor count here.
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The birds glide in on warm air currents, or thermals, generated by the tree-clad slopes of the valley. Most fly solo. Some fly in small groups.
An official raptor count has been taken since 2004, and watchers have tallied in excess of 10,000 raptors of 13 species some years, including bald and golden eagles, red-tailed and sharp-shinned hawks, turkey vultures, even the occasional osprey and peregrine falcon. Last year, more than 1,200 bald eagles were through, plus more than 8,200 red-tailed hawks, making this the key count site in all of North America for the latter species.
Equally significant is the golden eagle count – the second highest in eastern North America. In 2009, 95 golden eagles were tallied.
Yet, surprisingly, the migration is a well-kept secret.
“Lots of people don’t know about it,” says Goossen. Even with his own lifelong interest in birds, he was unaware of the corridor’s significance until recent years.
COUNTS BEGIN
It was in the mid-1980s that southern Manitoba teacher Al Schritt and his wife Dorothy, avid birdwatchers, first took note of the significant numbers of raptors winging through here. As word spread, informal or “opportunistic” counts were taken each spring until 2004, when they were formally organized.
This spring marks the seventh year of the now official and standardized Pembina Valley Windygates Raptor Count, a project of A Rocha Canada, (pronounced “a RAW sha”) an international Christian conservation organization with afield study centre in the Pembina Valley Provincial Park.
It begins as the first birds arrive – around the third week of February – and continues until about the third week of April. Someone, from a small core of volunteers plus two paid counters, will be in the valley every day to collect data over that period.
It takes dedication, especially at the beginning of the event.
“You can sit here watching for a spec in the sky,” says Goossen. “And you might sit here for hours and not see any birds.”
MID-MARCH BURST OF BIRDS
By mid-March, it’s a different story. On rare occasions – four times since 1989 to be exact – daily raptor counts have exceeded 3,000 birds. It is not at all unusual to spot at least 100 birds a day, and even 1,000 a day, at the peak of the event.
Then counters are scrambling to keep up, and are glad for help, says Goossen. That’s when the birdwatchers of all experience levels, as well as the merely curious, show up.
“You’ll have people here spotting and calling out (what they’re seeing),” says Goossen. “On a day you may have 30 or 40 people through. It’s a social event actually.”
But it’s also a very carefully organized activity. The counters discern the direction of the wind before taking up their posts, either on the valley’s north or south slope along Provincial Rd. 201. Once the count location is decided, they begin recording hourly data on numbers and species, as well as temperature, visibility, and the wind’s direction and speed. The number of counters is counted, too.
Counting ends each day after 30 minutes have passed after the last raptor is through. Provincial Rd. 201 is the crossing line.
“The bird has to cross the road and keep going to count,” says Goossen. “We’re very careful that we don’t double count. We don’t want to bias the count.”
The data is submitted to the Hawk Migration Association of North America.
Their long-term hope is that the Pembina Valley will be officially recognized as an Important Bird Area (IBA), adds Goossen, who has lobbied Bird Studies Canada to designate the area. The valley is key not only for raptor migration but to all sorts of migratory birds.
Plus it is an important songbird breeding area, adds Goossen. There are almost 600 IBAs in Canada, or areas designated as key habitat for bird life.
The study of raptors’ population health is important for understanding what’s going on in the wider environment. While studying raptors in the 1960s, for example, scientists learned about the negative effects of DDT on these birds of prey.
FAITH BASED
As a project of A Rocha, the raptor count has an additional layer of purpose.
They undertake these and other conservation-oriented projects out of their faith-based commitment to environmental stewardship and creation care, says Goossen.
“Raptors essentially are bio-indicators,” he said. “They’re a canary in a coal mine or however you may want to term it. They give us a sense of what’s happening out there. And if they’re suffering, it means something is wrong in the environment and we need to be aware of it.” [email protected]
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Last Year’s Numbers
2010 Pembina Valley spring migration raptor countSpecies
Turkey vulture Osprey
Bald eagle
American kestrel Merlin
Number
190 2
1,208
Northern harrier 141
Sharp-shinned hawk 919 Cooper’s hawk 76
Northern goshawk 25
Swainson’s hawk 2 Red-tailed hawk
8,274
Rough-legged hawk 40 Golden eagle 95
15 34
Peregrine falcon 1 Unidentified 32 Total 11,057
Source:Raptor Review
A Rocha Canada Christians in Conservation
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You can watchwith the watchers!
Track the daily Pembina Valley count by logging on to: www.hawkcount.org.
The Hawk Migration Association of North America’s website is: www.hmana.org.
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A Rocha means“The Rock” inPortuguese.
The Pembina Valley Field Study Centre is A Rocha’s second Canadian centre (another is in B.C.) located adjacent to the 2,500 acres of oak woodland of Pembina Valley Provincial Park.
For more information about the Pembina Valley Windygates Raptor Count or A Rocha contact log on to www.arocha.ca or contact the Pembina Valley Centre at [email protected]
(204)246-2059.
