Cape May Raptor Banding Project

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Cape May Raptor Banding Project

A volunteer non-profit organization supporting raptor conservation and scientific study since 1967. CapeMayRaptors.org Bird Banding Laboratory.

All raptors shown are handled with care and appropriate permits. Raptor banding stations have been in operation every year in Cape May, New Jersey since 1967 to survey migrating raptors. This research helps to determine population increases or decreases, as well as species movements. In 1999 we incorporated as the Cape May Raptor Banding Project, Inc. (CMRBP), a 501c3 non‐profit organization run e

ntirely by volunteers. As of 2017 the project has captured over 150,000 diurnal raptors of 17 species during fall migration in the months of September, October and November. This makes CMRBP the largest raptor banding project in North America and one of the largest in the world. All the birds that are trapped are banded and recorded then released safely and unharmed. The banding records are collected by the U.S.G.S.

11/14/2025

For the second time in Project history (remember we’ve been going since 1967), CMRBP banded an ADULT Bald Eagle! Of nineteen Bald Eagles banded by our project, sixteen have been hatch year, one second year, and two adults.

The ba**ers noted the eagle had a few generations of adult feathers but the oldest an unbanded Bald Eagle can be definitively aged as is after forth year (with birds older than four having a completely white head and tail). The bird was a healthy weight and in good overall condition.

We hope someone in the future will see the bird, note the band number, and report its location online to the Bird Banding Laboratory to help increase our understanding of raptor movement, age, and other metrics.

Special thanks to long-time Project alumni Alec Humann and Jeff Ott for catching and banding the bird.

Stay tuned as we’ll be sharing a slow motion release video soon in another post.

*All birds handled with care and proper state and federal permits.

Photo 1: Alec showing off half of the eagles impressive wingspan (which reaches six feet in all).
Photo 2: Alec holding the eagle in a secure grip with its wings closed.
Photo 3: The eagle’s impressive talons held securely.
Photo 4: The eagle flying off immediately post release. Photo by Paul Guris.

05/20/2025

URGENT NEWS

As part of the effort to find efficiencies in the Federal Government, the current proposed fiscal year 2026 budget bill before Congress has called for defunding the USGS Ecosystems Mission Areas, with the USGS Bird Banding Laboratory (BBL) under the Eastern Ecosystem Mission Area. The goal would then be to source out those research functions to universities under a competitive process. This Congressional action, if enacted in current form, will affect our 50+ years of data and research activities, and could eliminate the BBL, operating since 1920, and shut down all permitted banding activities throughout the US and into Canada.

We believe in and support the BBL and ask that you join the virtual rally, link below, on May 22, 12:00-1:00 PM EDT, to help push for the continued funding of the BBL and the USGS Ecosystems Mission Areas. We also encourage you to contact your government officials and elected representatives in Congress to advocate for the BBL.

Thank you for the support!

https://www.mobilize.us/nwf/event/790009/:

12/03/2024

Today is the day! We know many different organizations will be asking for donations today, but we hope you might consider our volunteer run non-profit as we can’t do what we do without your help. CapeMayRaptors.org/Donate

This past season alone we banded 1,436 raptors which means we have banded over 160,000 birds of prey since 1967! In 2024 we reached over 700 members of the public—kids and adults—through our educational demos, and we collaborated on eight different research projects with more on the horizon.

If you are able to donate know you would be funding the likes of hiring a research technician to learn valuable raptor research skills and perform our popular educational outreach programs. We rely on the generosity of the public to help offset the costs that otherwise fall to our volunteer ba**ers. Any amount helps and donations are accepted anytime on our website (CapeMayRaptors.org) through Venmo () and PayPal. Thank you for your donations!

Also, please consider sharing this post with others via your stories or a re-post to help spread the word. Thank you!

*All birds handled with care and appropriate state and federal permits.

Photo: The top half of a Merlin facing the viewer with a black background and the Giving Tuesday red heart graphic to the left with “Giving Tuesday” written in blue below on a white slightly see-through rectangle.

12/01/2024

Did you know that this year alone CMRBP is partaking in eight different research projects?

This Red-tailed Hawk caught by our project ba**ers features a transmitter, safely and securely outfitted by Mike Lanzone of CTT, that will track this two year old raptor for years in order to better understand its stopover habitat requirements in New Jersey for future conservation considerations, overall fall migration, and spring return to its breeding areas.

This research project was initiated in 2022 by Dr. Trish Miller, one of CMRBPs ba**ers, which aims to attach transmitters to Red-tailed Hawks, Red-shouldered Hawks, Broad-winged Hawks, Cooper’s Hawks, and Sharp-shinned Hawks for aforementioned reasons. In fact this research is the first time a cellular unit has ever been attached to a Sharp-shinned Hawk! Yes, it is really exciting to get an intimate view of our smallest diurnal raptors migration ecology alongside the other species, and, yes, we think we could go on all day about how cool it is but this post is already pretty long so with that…

Giving Tuesday is coming up next week and we are asking you to help us continue our volunteer-run nonprofit by making a donation on December 3rd, the first Tuesday following Thanksgiving. Any amount helps as we rely on the generosity of the public to help offset the costs that otherwise fall to our volunteer ba**ers. Where do your donations go? Towards the likes of hiring a research technician to learn valuable raptor research skills and perform our popular educational outreach programs in the New Jersey State Park and Nature Conservancy West Cape May Meadows. Donations are accepted anytime on our website (CapeMayRaptors.org) through Venmo () and PayPal. Thank you for your consideration.

Also, you can read about the above research and others we have worked and collaborated on through our website.

*All birds handled with care and appropriate state and federal permits.

11/27/2024

Did you know that our Project routinely engages with the public through educational demonstrations and this past season alone reached over 700 people of all ages?

CMRBP has been holding public demos for decades with, whenever possible, banded raptors that are ready for release to provide first hand observation of these magnificent birds. Within these demos we aim to educate the public about what research our Project does and these wonderful birds of prey, their role in the environment, the threats raptors face in modern society, and what we all can do to help them.

Now with Giving Tuesday coming up next week we are asking all of you that are able to help us continue our volunteer-run nonprofit by making a donation on December 3rd, the first Tuesday following Thanksgiving. Any amount helps and alleviates the costs that otherwise fall to our volunteer ba**ers with funds going towards the likes of hiring the research technician that presents many of our demos. Donations are accepted anytime on our website (CapeMayRaptors.org), through Venmo (), and PayPal. Thank you so much!

*All birds handled with care and appropriate state and federal permits.

Photo: a hatch year Swainson’s Hawk in hand facing the viewer under the State Park pavilion with a blurred background of engaged kids and adults.

11/11/2024

Take a look at this absolutely gorgeous little falcon. We very rarely have an adult male Merlin in hand so this was very special. In fact since 2013 the Project has only banded 31 adult males out of 1,449 total Merlins.

Come their second year male Merlins molt from brown to steely blue-gray back feathers whereas the females retain their brown ones. This particular individual was aged as a second year because he retained enough brown hatch year feathers but that did not detract from him in the slightest—he slayed all of us with his dapper appearance.

Once uncommon in suburban and urban areas, Merlins have been taking up breeding residence in human dominated and altered habitats including further south than previously reported. Have you noticed any breeding or otherwise in your neighborhood? Let us know in the comments!

11/06/2024

The Project reached a couple great milestones recently: over 1,000 raptors banded for the season! Not only that but CMRBP has now officially banded over 160,000 raptors since 1967. We are not aware of any other project in North America that has managed to band as many.

We are not just about banding raptors, however. We have worked with numerous researchers over the years to better understand the status and trends of migrating raptors and are working with eight different research projects alone this year. Not to mention all of the outreach we do with our public demos.

With Giving Tuesday coming up, we hope you will keep us in mind as we are a volunteer non-profit that relies on the generosity of the public to help offset the costs that otherwise fall to our volunteer ba**ers. Your donations go towards the likes of hiring a research technician to learn valuable raptor research skills and perform our popular educational outreach programs in the New Jersey State Park and Nature Conservancy West Cape May Meadows. Any amount helps and donations are accepted anytime on our website through Venmo and PayPal.

Thanks for following along and we hope you continue to cheer us on towards 161,000 raptors banded in Cape May!

*All birds handled with care and appropriate state and federal permits.

Photo 1: a partial profile view of a hatch year Cooper’s Hawk.
Photo 2: a female American Kestrel facing the camera.
Photo 3: a hatch year Peregrine Falcon with right wing open looking off center.
Photo 4: season data showing weekly and season totals for all the species we routinely catch totaling 1,164 as of November 2nd.

11/01/2024

The Project had a particularly exciting Cooper’s Hawk in hand recently. Why exciting? Because it was banded the previous year by us in Cape May! One year and 1.5 weeks earlier to be precise, a trend we have seen with individuals sticking to a tight migration window.

Most of the birds we band are hatch year on their first migration and don’t realize Cape May is a dead end unless they’re up for a water crossing. It’s believed in subsequent years these birds typically stick further inland so we are less likely to re-encounter them in Cape May. Adult birds also tend to be harder to catch in general as they are more seasoned. Whatever the reason the Coops came back, we were excited he made a return visit and we were able to gather more valuable data.

*All birds handled with care and appropriate state and federal permits.

Photo: An adult Cooper’s Hawk in profile with an orange-gray eye, brown cheek, and slaty-gray back. It is not the one mentioned but a similar looking individual.

10/30/2024

The 28th Swainson’s Hawk ever banded by our project was caught on October 26th, a raptor we have gone five to seven years between having in hand before. To put the rarity into true perceptive: CMRBP has banded over 159,000 raptors since 1967, only 28 of which have been Swainson’s.

The bird now has a USGS leg band with a unique number and we hope to have the individual reported back to us in the future. Despite having only banded a small number of Swainson’s, we have had one band recovery for the species—the raptor was discovered months later in Nova Scotia.

CMRBP has been collaborating with researchers aiming to put a transmitter on a Swainson’s Hawk to try to understand where these birds are coming from, where they are going, and within that if there is potentially an undiscovered small breeding population somewhere in the far northeast away from human eyes or if they are true western vagrants coming east. Putting a transmitter on one was not possible at this time, but we are far from giving up and know it will happen eventually.

We also want to say thank you to our ba**er Greg Ivins that caught the bird, ba**er Alec Humann for taking time away from his day to be the permit holder during the demo, and to everyone that came to the demo with an extra special thank you to those that donated. We accept donations at any time on our website via PayPal and Venmo if you wish to support us.

*All birds handled with care and appropriate state and federal permits.

Photo 1: a hatch year Swainson’s Hawk in hand with wings gently spread facing the camera.
Photo 2: a close up of the Swainson’s Hawks brown-streaked buffy breast and dark brown eye facing just off center.
Photo 3: the outer half of the Swainson’s wing showing the emargination (“notches”) of the three outermost primaries used to help narrow the buteo down to species.
Photo 4: the back of the raptor with head to the side displaying the gray-brown tones to its feathers and lightly banded tail.

10/26/2024

Please join us for our last weekend of demos this season.

Where & When:
- Cape May State Park east shelter @ 10:00 AM Saturday and Sunday
- South Cape May Meadows parking lot kiosk @ 11:30 AM on Saturday

We are sad they’re ending but so excited we got to interact with many members of the public this year. Thank you so much if you made it out and we give a big extra thank you to everyone that was able to donate. You can donate anytime on our website.

Also, if you did not know, we also welcome groups seeking private demos at any time during our fall season. Check our website for details.

We hope to see you this weekend!

All birds handled with care and appropriate permits.

Photo: A banded male Sharp-shinned Hawk in hand looking at the viewer with a blurred audience behind under a wooden pavilion.

10/23/2024

Some immature Cooper’s Hawks exhibit subtle plumage variation in the breast feathers that can be hard to detect outside the hand, most commonly seen in a more buffy tone to the white near the head verse a lack thereof. However, the Project caught two this season that showed more extreme variation outside the aforementioned. One was remarkably rufous (first photo) and the other startling white with little brown (second photo). Paul Engman, currently is his 50th season banding at the Point, caught the whiter Coop’s and could not readily recall ever seeing one quite like it.

Photos three through five shows the typical Cooper’s and the subtle variation therein.

All birds handled with care and appropriate state and federal permits.

Photos: All showing Cooper’s Hawks in the hand with the breast forward showing aforementioned characteristics.

10/20/2024

Out of 534 peregrines banded between 2013-2023* by CMRBP only 73 have been classified as second year or older. So for the ba**ers to catch this nice adult female last week was an awesome experience!

Peregrine Falcons are found on every continent except Antarctica and suffered a catastrophic decline in North America throughout the middle half of the last century due to the pesticide DDT. In fact adult peregrines were once so rare to band on the Point that some of the “old timers” tell a story about all the banding stations closing down one day in 1985 when an adult was caught so they could all go see it. Since banning DDT in 1972, their numbers have increased exponentially as a result of reintroduction efforts. However, the last few years are seeing their first decline since, particularly in costal populations, with avian flu being pointed to as the likely culprit**. Our numbers have followed that downward trend with 33, 22, and 14 banded in ‘21, ‘22, and ‘23 respectively whereas most years over 50 have been banded since the turn of the century. Of course our numbers are not representative of wide scale decline as we are banding and not counting but they do hint at it to a small degree.

All birds handled with care appropriate state and federal permits

*The Project did not band in 2020 due to COVID-19.

**Check out the Audubon article “Why Are Peregrine Falcon Numbers Falling in the United States Again?” for more on the decline.

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Cape May Point, NJ

Website

http://www.capemayraptors.org/

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