Today was the opening day of trapping season here in Colorado. One of the falconers here was wanting to trap a RT and asked if he could go out with us today. We had plans to be out before daylight, but Mario had training that he couldn't miss at work, so we didn't get out until about 10am.

We headed north and started seeing birds right away...but they were Swainson's hawks. We saw a LOT of Swainson's!!!! The first bird that we saw that looked like a passage RT was real light and we thought possibly a Krider's. Turned out to be a really light...yep, you guessed it...a Swainson's. It was a really pretty bird, though. I forgot to take pictures after we trapped him.

We drove around literally for hours without seeing a single passage RT. Here are some pics of the various birds we did see.






We did see this bird that was definitely a RT, but we weren't too sure if it was a passage. The bird was sitting way up high and we threw the trap but it wasn't too interested. I ended up bumping the bird when I walked to throw the trap closer.




We came across one field where they were cutting the hay and there were over 20 Swainson's flying over the field. That doesn't include the birds just sitting in the field. There were even 2 hag RTs sitting on a pole across the street watching the field as well.