Re tagged red-tail- Sue Cottrell 7/22/13

Hi Holly, This Red-tail Hawk was re-located from Sea-Tac. It was captured August 18, 2010 at Sea-Tac and released in Skagit County. It has been observed up here a few times since then and is most likely one of the pair that had a successful nest this year just across the freeway west of St. Joe's hospital. Females are tagged on the right and males on the left. The program is run by Bud Anderson for the Port of Seattle and you can get more information about it at the Falcon Research Group website, wwwdotfrgdotorg. He keeps track of all sightings of the wing-tagged birds. I will let him know of your sighting. "The FRG is working jointly with the Port of Seattle (Steve Osmek, Port biologist) to study the number and distribution of birds of prey that occur at SEATAC airport. The purpose of this work is to minimize the number of raptors involved in air strikes at Sea-Tac. In addition to the direct conservation benefits for the hawks, we can also reduce the potential damage to aircraft caused by strikes. Using a variety of innovative techniques, we have successfully captured 93 raptors so far. All immature birds are transported 75 miles north to better and safer habitat of the Skagit Flats." If you see a white wing-tagged bird, it was re-located from the Vancouver, BC airport. Nice capture. The quality is plenty good enough to see the number and that's what counts!