[obol] February Christmas Valley Raptor Survey

[Kim Boddie]

Loweel Franks from Fort Rock and I drove the Christmas Valley Raptor Survey Route yesterday under cloudy skies with temps. between 26 and 33 degrees F.
The winds were light in the AM and gusty to 20 mph in the afternoon.  Thee was between 2 and 7 inches of snow cover with drifting snow in the afternoon.  the raptor count was down, probably do to the snow cover.  See numbers below.  Besides the raptors we had some interesting sightings which included 143 Common Ravens, 45 proghon, and thousands of Horned Larks which were everywhere along the road edges out of the snow.  The larks were in groups of 10 - 100 and I had a hard time keeping from running over them.

Here are the raptors;
Red-tailed Hawk            26
N. Harrier                          4
Bald Eagle                       1 S, 2 A
Golden eagle                   3 
Rough-legged Hawk      20
Ferruginous Hawk          19
Unident. Buteo                  8
Prairie falcon                    4

Total                                   87 
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