Hi Tweeters,
The Falcon Research Group will begin our annual hawk banding study at Entiat Ridge (northeast of Leavenworth, Chelan County, WA) starting on Saturday 26 August and extending into mid-October. Last year, we banded and released 349 raptors at this site, primarily Sharp-shinned Hawks and Cooper's Hawks. Over the last 5 years, our team has banded 1,338 raptors there.
The Entiat Ridge Experimental Hawk Banding Station is located at 5,000' feet on the longest continuous mountain ridge in our state and is one of the best places to see migrant hawks in Washington. The site is owned by Longview Fibre and they are kindly giving their permission to conduct our research on their land.
We are inviting visitors to join us at the ridge each weekend in August and September (not October) to view the migration. I'll be meeting people in the "parking lot" near the station and observing the movement from 1000 through 1400 each weekend day.
For those interested in learning more about banding hawks and perhaps participating in the study, we will be presenting a free two-hour introductory seminar from 7-9 PM in Seattle (23 August), Mt. Vernon (24 August) and Leavenworth (25 August) just prior to the study. Please contact me for more information and to sign up for the seminar.
To view a report summarizing the 5 year effort and to get directions to the site, please visit our website at www.frg.org.
For those of you that have visited the site in past years, please note that there is currently a logging operation underway along the usual road to the ridge. Please check out the web-site for a description of an alternate route to avoid the extremely heavy dust.
Have a good fall,

Bud Anderson
Falcon Research Group
Box 248
Bow, WA 98232
(360) 757-1911
bud at frg.org