ARCI’s second-oldest satellite-tracking project, after our
18-year study of Swallow-tailed Kites, is on Short-tailed Hawks. When Microwave
Telemetry Inc. began making solar powered satellite transmitters small enough
for medium-sized raptors, the Short-tailed Hawk was a perfect candidate. From 2001 to 2007, we raised enough funds to
tag four Short-tails.
Of these four birds, one is still alive and transmitting. Hidden
Lake, named after her capture location in Everglades National Park, is a dark
morph female tagged on 22 November 2006 when she was about 6 months old. Soon
after, Hidden Lake moved farther north for the rest of the winter, to the
northern boundary of the Big Cypress National Preserve. We also observed this pattern
of early-and-late wintering sites in other Short-tailed Hawks we tracked. By
March 2007 she started exploring to the north in Manatee, Hardee, and Highlands
counties, then settled into a summer home range in western Hendry County. In
September, she moved south again for the winter.
In March 2008, Hidden Lake established her first nesting
territory seven
miles east of Fort Myers on the south side of the Caloosahatchee River. Her mate was a
light morph male and together they fledged one dark morph juvenile. Hidden Lake has continued to
nest on this same territory, the core area of a relatively small annual home
range.
