Six Years of Data from Tagged Rough-Legged Hawk

Above: A Rough-legged Hawk given a GPS transmitter by the TRC research team in 2017 has embarked on its 6th spring migration. Photo by The Rough-legged Hawk Project.

Spring migration is underway! As the snow (finally) starts to melt, you may be noticing the return of birds that mark the beginning of spring in the valley. While many birds, such as Osprey, are returning to Wyoming to breed, others are traveling to breeding grounds farther north. The Rough-legged Hawk is a species that only occurs in Wyoming in the winter, and spends the breeding season in the Arctic. This map shows the movement of one individual Rough-legged Hawk that was captured by TRC staff during fall migration in 2017, and fitted with a transmitter in collaboration with Kidd Biological and The Rough-legged Hawk Project. The Rough-legged Hawk Project is an international collaborative effort led by Jeff Kidd and Neil Paprocki to better understand Rough-legged Hawk movements, migration, and habitat needs since 2014. One of several hawks TRC tagged for this continental study, the Rough-legged Hawk represented in this map is a 7-year-old male who has traveled 112,065 kilometers over the past 6 years. Last week alone, he traveled 810 kilometers!