![]() The species accounts that follow describe in more detail the history of these raptor species in Seattle and its urban environs. Other urban raptors - Sharp-shinned Hawks, American Kestrels, Owl species, Bald Eagles, Ospreys - have long been observed as well. Three species of urban raptors in Seattle have been studied for years: Peregrine Falcons, Cooper’s Hawks, and Merlins. Ospreys are likely to have been nesting on Lake Washington even further back in time.Butch Olendorff found a pair on the hillside west of the Duwamish Slough in the late 1960s. When Cooper’s Hawks first began to breed in the city is unknown.The first nesting pair of Peregrine Falcons since the ban on the pesticide DDT arrived in Seattle in 1994.Not long afterward, Bald Eagles showed up in Kirkland and Seattle’s Seward Park.Red-tailed Hawks were first documented in Seattle after the I-5 freeway opened in the mid-1960s.Over the next few years, Merlins slowly were found southward from Burlington to Seattle. The first known city pair in Washington was in Bellingham in 2000. In Washington, little historic information existed until the 1980s, when long-time raptor observers Tom Gleason, Jim Fackler, and others started finding nesting Merlin pairs on the Olympic Peninsula, up the Skagit and Stillaguamish Rivers, and elsewhere. Merlins were first documented in a North American city by Lynn Oliphant in 1971 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.Raptors commonly found in western Washington cities are Merlins, Red-tailed Hawks, Bald Eagles, Peregrine Falcons, Cooper’s Hawks, Ospreys, Sharp-shinned Hawks, American Kestrels, and Owls. There is a picture for each raptor in this list and I added a few cool. In the Pacific Northwest, raptors have been observed in cities for over 60 years. I have arranged them into 6 groups falcons, hawks, eagles, owls, kites, and the osprey. It is also underway in Europe, where Goshawks and Eurasian Sparrowhawks are also moving into cities. Urban raptor expansion is happening all across North America. ![]() But crows are called scavengers even though they rob and eat live nestlings as raptors do, because they lack the defining physical traits of raptors.Īll native species of birds, including all of the raptors named here, are federally protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. Thus, vultures are often called raptors even though they are scavengers of the dead. In addition to their hunting habits, raptors are distinguished from other carnivorous birds by their hooked beaks, sharp, curved talons, and excellent eyesight. A raptor, or bird of prey, is a carnivorous bird: it hunts and eats other animals.
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