Elkhorn Slough NERR hosts a variety of breeding raptors. In a typical year, there may be 2 pairs of white-tailed kites, 1 pair of red-tailed hawks, 1 pair of red-shouldered hawks, and 4 pairs of barn owls. These top carnivores are often good indicators of ecosystem health: if they fail to reproduce successfully, this may be the result of pesticide accumulation along the food chain or disturbance to native vegetated habitat.

Given this role as indicators of ecosystem health, we attempt to map all raptor nests on the Reserve and assess their reproductive success each year.

How to get involved
If you are familiar with local raptor species and like hiking around the Reserve on your own, we'd love your help mapping out our breeding raptors. We will set you up with a map of nests from previous years and ask you to check each nest to determine whether it is active and whether there are offspring this year.

For more information contact Kerstin Wasson ( ).