“Okay here’s a roughie on a fence post, a wooden fence post,” says biologist Beth Mendelsohn.
She spots a brown and white rough-legged hawk, one of the several bird-of-prey species that calls the Mission Valley home during the winter.
“So, this is a nice one to look at if you guys want to look, it’s a rough-legged but it’s an adult male, looks a little different. The most beautiful of the raptors I would say,” Mendelsohn says.
Rough-legged hawks get their name from being feathered all the way down their legs, which is unusual for a hawk. During fall migration they come here from the Arctic, and then in spring they go back north to breed. In Montana, they can only be found in the winter.
The Mission Valley is an especially good place to see rough-legged hawks and other species of raptors — like golden eagles, prairie falcons, red-tailed hawks, northern harriers, and more.
“We talk about how the Mission Valley is this great mecca for raptors. All the birders know it, locals know it,” Mendelsohn says, “but we wanted to put some numbers to that and really quantify like what? What does that mean? How many are there?"
Five years ago Mendelsohn created a survey to quantify just how many raptors winter in the valley. She works for the Owl Research Institute in Charlo.
Datasets like these create a benchmark that can help researchers determine if populations begin to decline or change.
“Then you can start to ask questions once you have a long-term data set,” Mendelsohn says, “Is that changing over time? Is anything about it changing? Are there fewer raptors? Are there different species?”
Once a month, November through March, birders spend a day driving routes across the valley, getting out every mile to spot, count and document every single raptor they see in a half mile radius.
On this survey trip, Mendelsohn and volunteers split into five teams and spread out across the valley. Volunteer John Delagrange sets up the scope at one survey stop.
“There are so many eagles around today,” he says.
Mendelsohn says that's typical.
"We get a lot of eagles, especially January, February, March when there’s calving,"
The birders take detailed accounts of what they see including the birds’ color, age, sex, what it’s perched on or what it’s doing when spotted. Birding can seem like its own language sometimes, with acronyms and shorthand to call out birds quickly.
"PF! Nice! Yeah another prairie! Good spot," Mendelsohn calls out as she identifies a young prairie falcon. The data gathered so far backs up what everyone has said all these years.
Denver Holt is the Owl Research Institute’s founder and president.
"Gosh, look at the numbers we have after five years now, going into our sixth year, is phenomenal. We don't know anywhere else like that," he says.
January’s count was their highest to date, with 909 raptors counted across the entire survey. That’s almost 1,000 birds in one day, and an average of about six birds of prey per mile.
Everyone meets up post-survey to share what they saw. Mendelsohn and Holt were excited to see this many birds, but of course they have their favorites.
Ellis Juhlin: Best bird you saw today?
"Golden eagle," Mendelsohn says.
Holt replies, "That’s a good bird, that's a good bird. I think, the pygmy owl."
