Hi Everyone,

It’s that time of year again where preparations are being made to conduct monthly raptor surveys for the East Cascades Audubon Society’s Winter Raptor Survey Project. We are entering our 9th winter of the project in Idaho and 16th winter overall since our start in Oregon during the winter of 2004-05. The chapter is based in Bend, OR. Last winter we finished up with 118 active survey routes throughout Idaho and 312 total routes in the project covering more than 18,000 miles of established transects throughout OR, ID, the Columbia River portions of WA, and the CA portions of the Klamath Basin in south central OR. Over 240 primary volunteers participated last winter. This winter, we are moving the project into all of eastern WA so it should prove to be a winter full of birds throughout the project! 🙂

My intent with this message is to advertise routes that do not currently have a volunteer and solicit your help to survey them this winter. The following routes and their lengths were developed at the beginning of the Idaho effort but have never been surveyed, they are all located in the Rupert/Burley/Minidoka area east of Twin Falls:

Acequia. 34 miles
Heyburn. 40
Minidoka NW. 68
Paul. 65
Rupert – Minidoka. 50
Rupert North. 65

The following routes are in the same R/B/M area and have been surveyed a time or two:

Burley SW. 62
Burley SE. 31
Churchill – Oakley. 69

The following new routes are located between Lewiston and Orofino:

Culdesac. 55.9
Winchester. 72.7
Craigmont – Mohler 55.6
Nezperce. 71.5

The following new routes are located just west of Lewiston and Clarkston in WA:

Cloverland. 56.3
Clarkston – Peola. 55.6
Pomeroy North. 77.2
Pomeroy South. 50.8

Other new never before run routes available include:

Worley. 67.9
Hwyy 93 Challis to Mackay Reservoir. 59.8
Genesee South 40.5

For those of you who enjoy viewing birds of prey, these surveys are a fun systematic way of satisfying that passion and we welcome all that wish to participate in this large and established citizen science project :). A few requisites include:

1. The ability to identify at least the 5 major raptor species in this project – Red-tailed Hawk, American Kestrel, Northern Harrier, Bald Eagle, and Rough-legged Hawk. Together these make up over 90% of all birds recorded in this project. We have found 31 species of raptors over the 15 years of the project so ID knowledge of the other species besides the main 5 would be advantageous but we are also about learning about these great birds so don’t count yourself out if you don’t know them all, you can use this project to enjoy learning more about these birds!

2. We ask that you conduct at least one survey per month during the months of December through February. Optional surveys during November and March are available for those wishing more opportunities. These two months do have migration activity and this project is about monitoring winter populations but these extra surveys are encouraged if you have the desire 🙂

3. You should be comfortable driving during winter conditions in your area, snow, ice, and mud are not outside of reason to encounter :). SAFETY IS THE NUMBER ONE PRIORITY in this project, we want everyone to enjoy their day in the field but also we want everyone to come home safely as well. To date, we have had zero problems with this and there have been 46,395 hours expended on these surveys while driving a total of 720,939 miles!

4. Participants should have at least a good pair of binoculars for seeing birds at a distance. Spotting scopes are not required but they would be a plus if you own one.

As part of ECAS’s desire to provide project data to the masses, we entered into an agreement with The Peregrine Fund two winters ago to supply them with our project data, they are now current with 15 years of data and we will continue to be involved with TPF for as long as this project remains active. To say the least, TPF is more than happy to have our data as they continue a major project of theirs to create a worldwide raptor database.. ECAS is happy to have this opportunity to support their efforts 🙂

If this sounds like something that you would like to get involved with, we would enjoy having your help this winter! If one of the listed routes interests you, please do not hesitate (I will necessarily have to fill these on a first come first served basis) to email me with your choice(s) and I will provide an additional amount of information, including a project survey protocol, to get you set up for your activity. We have routes in most parts of the state but if there is an area that you live in where we are not represented, I am more than willing to create a route specific to your area, I would especially like to see more representation in the extreme SE corner of the state as well as the Rupert/Burley/Minidoka area mentioned earlier. To get a better feel for the covered areas of this project, I invite you to visit the ECAS website (ecaudubon.org ) and click on “winter raptor survey” in the projects section on their home page and you will be able to access one of several monthly interactive species maps that display all of the route locations along with density and distribution of the 14 most prominent species in the project.

It would be really great to get any of the above mentioned routes into the project this winter, don’t hesitate to jump in and participate! :).. We have a little over three weeks to fill these routes, once November 1 arrives, my efforts will switch from securing volunteers for routes to processing data collected and submitted so if you are interested, please do get involved :). Thank you and I will look forward to hearing from those of you who enjoy this regal family of birds and wish to help gather information about them 🙂

Jeff Fleischer
Project Coordinator
Winter Raptor Survey Project
East Cascades Audubon Society – Bend, OR