Headin' North

Last week--and just in time, as it turns out--I captured another Rough-legged Hawk (Buteo lagopus) and deployed a tracking device on it. Specifically, it received a solar-recharging platform terminal transponder (generally reffered to as a PTT), which I affixed as a backpack using Teflon ribbon straps.

Rough-legs winter in the northern United States, but breed (primarily on cliffs) in the Arctic of both North America and Eurasia. The goals of this deployment include learning more about timing and routes of migration, whether this species is faithful to the same wintering territory from one year to the next, and where the individuals that winter in Oregon breed in the Arctic.

This individual was the third this winter on which I've deployed a PTT. Like the other two, she is a female that hatched in 2012. As such, she's likely too young to breed this year, which is why she was still lingering here in the south (adults all seem to have left by now). But while the other two are still hanging out where I captured them, this bird headed north the day after tagging. She's already north of Calgary, Alberta, and I can't wait to see where she ends up.