Hi Tweets,

Scott Downes writes:

Upon reaching Sequim we had a Rough-legged Hawk just before
>entering the town of Sequim. This doesn't seem extremely early, however I
>have not heard any reports. Have anybody else had any reports for the fall
>yet?

First one hit Vancouver BC on Sep 06, two days later than the provisional
average arrival date here. There is a funny thing happening with
Rough-legged Hawk (RLHA) southbound migration at least at this part of the
Cascadian coast, and it may be just a case of birds migrating S along the
coast earlier than they do inland, but after the first one or two in Week 4
Aug or Week 1 Sep....nothing. About six weeks later, they start to trickle
in, their numbers and time what we think of as more conventionally
appropriate for the species.

I used to think of these first ones as pure fluke birds, but over the years
the pattern became clear that these were not mis-ID's: each late Aug/early
Sep, a competent birder would phone in to the local Alert with a "you'll
never guess what I saw today, etc."-type message about sighting a 'fluke' RLHA.

There may be a couple-three of reasons for this, and this is pure
speculation. First, these first few birds may be victims of 'Birders'
English': this is a 'winter' species, so we don't look for them in late
summer, or may not credit the sighting as anything but a fluke and it's only
when one has the data in front of one that the record-cluster jumps out, or
may not credit the sighting at all.

Secondly, RLHA may be similar to Violet-green and Tree Swallows, or Snow
Geese, where a few pioneer individuals precede the main migration by a
sometimes substantial period. Interesting that all these birds are
cold-weather birds. What other species pioneer like this?

Third--and far less likely, there's something inelegantly clunky about the
idea, though nothing's impossible with birds--is that there's a small
population of RLHA's that migrates early, maybe from a closer-than-known site.

There may also be some kind of age- and/or sex-sorting here as well. A few
years' worth of ageing and sexing as well as identifying these first few
birds may show that, just as an example, they might all be juv males, say.
Interesting! More surprises ahead, I'm sure!

Michael Price We aren't flying...we're falling with style!
Vancouver BC Canada -Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story
mprice at mindlink.net