Casey,

Regarding your question about Red-tailed Hawk pairing, Peterjohn (in 
Birds of Ohio) gives the earliest reported nesting as January 24, over a 
month from now.  However, in my experience seeing Red-tails paired up is 
not an unusual experience on a Christmas count.  (For example, I saw it 
a few times on the Kingston count, which is usually on January 1.)  So 
perhaps Red-tails have fairly long "honeymoons" -- or whatever the term 
for the period between establishing pairs and building nests.

Bill Heck

Casey Tucker wrote:

>Hi Folks,
>
>This is just a friendly reminder that this Saturday, December 17th, is the
>Oxford Christmas Bird Count hosted by Audubon Miami Valley!
>
>I definitely encourage you to get out and help count this weekend!
>
>I'll be participating in the Oxford count, but don't let that stop you from
>participating (I thought I'd better get that jab in there on myself before
>someone else did.)
>
>Seriously though, this year seems to be shaping up as an interesting
>birding year.  One of my early predictions is that we'll see record numbers
>of Cooper's Hawks this year.  I have seen numerous reports of Cooper's
>Hawks throughout the state this year (particularly in central Ohio), and
>I've already encountered more Cooper's hawks in the past month or two than
>I normally do in a single year.  Additionally, most of the reports I've
>seen, and most of the individuals I've encountered, have been juvenile
>birds.  It'll be interesting to see if my prediction is supported by the
>data.
>
>On a different note I was out birding at a couple of local (central Ohio)
>metroparks over the weekend.  Glacier Ridge metropark, located northwest of
>Columbus off of US33 near Marysville, held little in the way of abundance
>but held a few interesting sightings.  There was a pair of Red-tailed hawks
>hunting over the fields together.  They seemed to be perching together and
>interacting pretty closely together, but not agonisticaly.  Would this be a
>mating pair already?  Preston & Beane, in the Birds of North America,
>suggest that nest building doesn't start until late February or early March
>for most birds, though there has been late December nest-building
>documented in Arizona...but that's a little different than Ohio in late
>December.
>
>In addition to the Red-tails there were one or two Northern Harriers
>hunting over the fields at Glacier Ridge.  I've noticed there seems to be
>significantly fewer Harriers this year than in previous years.  It was
>suggested at the OOS Raptor Seminar that this may be a result of a low
>abundance of vole prey species this year.  I know a lot of vole research
>occurs at Miami U. and didn't know if anyone has heard of similarly low
>abundance of voles in the southwestern part of the state from any of the
>researchers there.  This may also explain why there seems to be very few
>reports of short-eared owls (and long-eared owls) this year as well from
>the traditional sites (Killdeer Plains for example).  This is just a
>perception so it will be interesting to see what kind of results are
>produced over the coming weeks from the Christmas Bird Count data.
>
>For more details and information about the Oxford Christmas Bird Count
>Download AMV's pdf newsletter:
>http://www.audubonmiamivalley.org/Newsletters/AMVnewsletterDec05.pdf
>
>
>If you're interested in checking out some photos I took while I was out
>birding this weekend feel free to visit:
>http://caseybirdphotos.blogspot.com/
>
>I look forward to seeing you all out this weekend for another great
>Christmas Bird Count!
>
>Good Birding!
>
>Casey
>Columbus, OH
>  
>