Message from the President

Happy Summer Everyone!

The summer breeding, nesting, hatching and fledging season is in full spring here in Colorado. Some juvenile bald eagles have already left their nests, and red-tailed hawks are beginning to "branch" and stretch their wings as well. Our wacky late spring weather which had some birds laying eggs very early, only to then have the parents endure weeks of heavy rain, means that some species such as Cooper's hawks may have lost their first clutches, but are now re-nesting.

The human kids are going through similar rituals, graduating and spreading their wings, but still (hopefully?) staying close to home. Recently we broke an REF record for the number of Eagle Scouts present at one of our specialized programs which is part of the ceremony known as the "Eagle Scout Court of Honor". I think the most scouts we'd ever seen in one ceremony was five; as you can see below, on June 22nd I was privileged to witness TEN scouts receive their Eagle Award! Troop 78 in Boulder (my old stomping grounds, GO BUFFS!!) is one the oldest Scouting America troops in Colorado; their first Eagle Scout received his rank back in 1966.

It's thrilling to see these teenagers be rewarded for their hard work, and have their whole lives ahead of them. Their enthusiasm and energy is absolutely infectious, and I know their parents are very proud of all of them. Note the young lady kneeling in the first row, far right side. This is the first female Eagle Scout for this troop, but for me, the THIRD young lady I've had the pleasure to stand beside.

We've got a busy few days coming up, with the Fourth of July right around the corner. Enjoy some leisure time, a burger, a drink, and let's celebrate ALL the eagles spreading their wings!~Anne Price, President

Denver's Downtown Peregrines Return

They're back, and thanks to The Considine Family Foundation, we've been able to acquire and install an amazing camera along with the supporting technology to see what's going on in their penthouse premises at 1875 Lawrence Street. Based on last year's nesting and fledging success (two peregrines fledged) our camera's location should be able to document much of the activity of this year's family. The videos published so far are captured from the 4K camera's local server which records ten days of video. We believe it will be a fantastic view into the private lives of Denver's first documented peregrines.

UPDATE as of May 22, 2025: Since we installed the new camera and began seeing some of the stunning moments shared on our YouTube channel, a lot has changed. The peregrines have vanished from 1875 Lawrence. Initially, Peter thought they may have moved back to their previous 2023 location at the Salesforce building, but after being allowed to inspect that location, he found no evidence of peregrines nesting there either. We'll continue searching for another month. Based on the copulation date we captured in one of the videos shown below, eggs should be hatching around the first week of June. Fledging usually occurs about six weeks later. We have several monitors who work downtown and we hope their regular presence might yield some useful news about where the peregrines have moved to...stay tuned!

A Few REF History Links

 White House Visit, Colorado’s First Environmental License Plates, Best Raptor Book Ever,  Our Raptors Cruise to Alaska, Consulting on National Memorial Sculpture, US Naval War College Special Program, Colorado Parks & Wildlife, Birds of Prey International Skiing Championships, International Falconry Festival, National Geographic, State & County Fairs,  Natural Solutions Consulting Services

Raptor Day at Denver Botanic Gardens 2025

As we've always said, "Their faces tell our story." This year's Raptor Day at the Gardens was no exception! The crowds in Mitchell Hall enjoyed two presentations, accompanied by short slide shows featuring additional photos of the raptor species displayed in our booth.

Above, docent Karen Gonzalez introduces a mother and child to our female Eurasian kestrel in the Freyer-Newman Center Atrium.

Our female gyrfalcon was a big hit at the drawing class held for students of the School of Botanical Art & Illustration. They spent approximately two hours sketching her in Gates Hall before moving over Mitchell to view our other birds.

This is one of our favorite events of the year, and it's always a pleasure to visit in person with REF members who come to enjoy the beautiful, calming spaces of the Denver Botanic Gardens. Thank you to Patricia Harvey and Matthew Cole of DBG, and a special thank you to Megan Considine for the terrific photos of that day!

Buteo Turns into a Bubo!

About mid-April, Peter drove by the basket nest along Chambers road just north of 96th Avenue. In 2023, red-tailed hawks raised one offspring here…check out our video from that summer. This year, the hawk was back to repeat the process. But on April 30th, when Peter drove back to the site to check on the red-tails' progress…the hawk had turned into a Great Horned Owl! Then on May 24th during Peter's next visit, one baby Bubo was very visible, and Peter thought another one might be laying down behind the bigger sibling. Peter could not find an adult owl anywhere and he was very surprised that the big owl would pick such an open location to raise a family. Hopefully the red-tails were merely displaced, and not eaten during the real estate dispute!

Kill TWENTY Eagles & Get ONE Day in Jail

USFWS Hiding Data About Eagles Killed; the French Defend Golden Eagles and more

A Virginia man killed twenty eagles hawks, confessed, and somehow managed to get only ONE day in jail and a fine of a few thousand dollars. Who did he know, and if that isn't wildlife terrorism, I don't know what is. Read more here.

Anybody outraged?

Are golden eagles on the path to extinction in the American west? "“Is it fair to suggest that the golden eagle might be on a wind turbine-induced glide path to extinction in its western US habitat, and potentially other areas of the world that are blighted by massive nature-destroying turbines? The answer is yes, the threat is real, it is undoubtedly growing, and it is ignored by mainstream media and political discourse." The reality of this statement should be explored here.

Golden eagles cannot survive more wind turbines being installed. Their populations are already feeling the impact of the vast killing fields spread over the western states, as reported by two new extensive studies seen below. In France however, they have a message to those promoting unreliable energy schemes that kill eagles. I never thought I would be saying this, but it is time to listen to the French.

From journalist David Wojick:

"Imagine there is an industry product that is killing thousands a year and the number is growing. The government is tracking it closely, while keeping the data secret in order to protect the product. Outrageous, right? But that is exactly the case with wind power killing eagles. Every wind-killed eagle found at an industrial wind site is quickly reported to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS). Every year each site also submits an annual kill report to USFWS. None of this data is publicly available.

The USFWS eagle kill data is all a big government secret designed to protect the wind industry from public outrage. This has to stop."

Anybody outraged?

Mike Lockhart, a former U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service biologist, has been using satellite tags to track eagles since 2014. According to the petition against "Rail Tie", an approximately 160-turbine project planned for southeastern Albany County in Wyoming, Lockhart’s research found that 82% of the documented eagle deaths were human caused and 43.5% of the known deaths of tagged eagles were caused by wind turbines. This is more than vehicle collisions, hunting and electrocutions combined. The entire story can be read here.

We have been officially against killer wind energy since 1993 when the "science" promoting the logic of industrial scale alternative energies was starting to seduce scientists with forever subsidies. Our Stop Conflict Energy Stickers, were part of a small effort to bring attention to this expensive, unreliable, and tragic system for killing wildlife and wild spaces based on faulty science. It is time to lift the green veil on killing eagles, and ask yourself why an entity like the Royal Society for the Preservation of Birds favors these avian assassins?

Peter Reshetniak, Director of Special Projects

Eagle Boulevard Eagle Family Update

This is probably the last time Peter will see both juveniles on the nest at Barr Lake State Park. They adapted to their challenging nest location, which was just a few hundred yards from train tracks that vibrated the ground every time coal trains lumbered by with their massive loads of solid black sunlight, millions of years old, being delivered to the final workplace creating electrons, steel, or industrial heat. The eagle family grew up and thrived, despite the diesel engines, the blaring horns, and the train vibrations. They adapted quite well to the challenges of civilization...at least at this location, this time.

Flocks of Other Ways to Help!

A Special Anniversary Offer on All Three of Our Books!

Celebrate our 45th anniversary by purchasing our

three books at this special price!

Just click

AWARD WINNER

Help Our Book Fly Higher:

Order Today!

Winner of the 2020 Skipping Stones Honor Award for Nature and Ecology Books

Reviews

“A unique book aimed at introducing young and beginning birders to the world of raptors. . . . creative for certain! Helpful, too.”–Jim Williams, Wingnut Blog, Minneapolis Star Tribune



“A very cool new book.”–Doc Kirby, On The Bookshelf

“Bird enthusiasts of all ages will find this book full of educational fun.”–Skipping Stones

“Beautiful, educational coloring book.”–Katie L.Burke, American Scientist

“All the essays were well-written and provided lots of easy-to-understand information, which allows the reader to identify many different types of raptors. I also really enjoyed the further reading at the back of the book about the kestrel box. The instructions were clear-cut, and the activity was easy and fun to do.”–Hannah, age thirteen, Kids’ BookBuzz

Orders Here! Or you may order on Amazon. Peek Inside

Read more about the author and the illustrator.

New Earrings Arrive!

Presenting: Falco mexicanus!

We are VERY excited about Jabebo's newest earring design, the hardy and beautiful prairie falcon. This large falcon, about the same size as a peregrine, is found only in the dry, Great Basin of North America. Surviving in landscapes tested by drought, wind and snow, this versatile falcon will hunt mammals, as well as birds. Get yours here!

Special thanks to The Kroenke Group & THF Realty for extending our lease at very affordable rates for the next 5 years. Support like this ensures we will make it through these challenging times.

Thanks to our past and future partners, THF Prairie Center Development, L.L.C., THF Prairie Center Investors, L.L.C. and the City of Brighton, for creating the best intersection in Colorado just a minute or two north of our headquarters!

As the new villages grow at Prairie Center, so do the streets with cool names! Check out some of the street names!

WISH LIST

We're still looking for a gently-used, 20-25 foot RV (Class C) that would serve as a mobile office for traveling programs around Colorado and farther away. Or maybe you have an SUV or pickup truck you would like to donate? We can put it to good use! Please give our office a call if you have a vehicle you think we could use!

(303) 680-8500

Thank you!

Raptor Chronicles

Previous Issues Archived Here

Just in case you've missed any issues, we currently have issues dating back to January 2020.

Join the 87 Families Helping Our Raptor Sanctuary

Help Us Reach 100 Supporting Families!

Wildcat Mountain Golden Eagles Update

For those of you following our video chronicles of the Wildcat Mountain golden eagles, you know that we hadn't confirmed how many eaglets were in the nest…that is, until now!

There may have been two eggs, which is the average clutch size for golden eagles, however a range of things can happen to eliminate the younger and weaker sibling in what is called the "Cain and Abel" syndrome. It may also mean that only one egg was laid, and now we see one rapidly growing youngster.

This is the first time we've been able to get a full view of the eaglet and at one of the two perspectives that Peter monitors the nest from, and the current size of the eaglet (about 4-6 weeks old) another sibling would have been very visible by now.

Peter spent more than two hours watching and filming, only to have what you are seeing here happen in the final few minutes before his last battery died. The continuing expansion of the nest was beautifully illustrated, with both parents returning with greenery to add to the HUGE nest rim.

The White-tailed Kites of Northern California

All Photos Courtesy of Jeff Wang

There are five species of kites in the United States, none of them in the same genus. These are white-tailed kites, Elanus leucurus. The best areas to view them in this country are in northern and central California, and Oregon. They can also be found in extreme southern Texas, and throughout Central and South America. They are very similar in appearance (but larger) than the black-winged (formerly known as the black-shouldered) kite, Elanus caeruleus, of sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and more recently, southern Europe. But to Anne, these were the "fairy birds" that she used to see with her family on a multi-use open space that had tennis courts near the street, a huge cross-country course, and miles of coastal scrub oak and grassland habitat running west down to Interstate 280.

These beautiful kites hunt mostly mice and other small mammals. This is in contrast to the Mississippi kite, which feeds primarily on aerial prey such as insects and bats, and visits Colorado from May to September. White-tailed kites are masters at hovering, similar to American kestrels, and when prey is spotted, they drop straight down into the grass, with their wings held high over the head. They inhabit the San Francisco Bay Area year round, regardless of wind and the ever-present fog which routinely covered the rolling golden hills of the open space habitat where Anne first observed them. They are also seen in estuaries, marshes, and coastal bluffs where they can easily "kite" into the wind and hunt for prey.

This spring, Jeff Wang made an epic trip to Northern California to photograph raptors, among other things. These kites were spotted engaging in a bit of "rumpy-pumpy" at Calero County Park, south of Silicon Valley.

According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, white-tailed kites maintain territories, though they tend to tolerate nearby kites and are not as strongly territorial as other raptors. On rare occasions, territory holders or an intruding kite might be met and challenged in flight where the two birds lock talons and tumble towards the ground (see the first photo above in this section).

Many species of raptors, particularly falcons and kites, engage in food exchanges as part of their courtship rituals. In the sequence above, Jeff managed to capture the female flying up to meet the male, rotating and grabbing what appears to be a vole. We all got a kick from how the male is double-checking his left foot to make sure the "hand-off" went smoothly!

For more information on the New World kite species (very different from Old World kites), and to see some spectacular hovering footage, please visit the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's website guide, AllAboutBirds.org

In addition to the United States of America, our Facebook followers are found in the following countries:

Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama,

Russia, Spain, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.

Automatic Monthly Donations: Thanks to everyone who has set up a monthly donation via PayPal. We have people from both coasts, a few states in the middle and in Colorado contributing automatic monthly pledges...thank you all!

REF Staff: Anne Price, President & Curator; Peter Reshetniak, Founder & Director of Special Projects; Savannah Grout, Mews Manager

Docents & Volunteers: Kristy Bortz, Clarissa Cigrand, Megan Considine, Karen Gonzalez, Kim Kistler, Linda Julia, Jennifer McAllister, Denis Murray, Karen Ogle, May Ann Ottinger, Anne Price, Jennifer Redmond, Peter Reshetniak, Beverly Rice, Mitch Skinner and Ann Stanz

Docents in Training: Robert Mitchell, and Peggy Plaus