[Maine-birds] Fwd: Bradbury Mountain State Park (24 Apr 2019) 1066 Raptors

Well, that was unexpected!

Bradbury Mountain State Park
Pownal, Maine, USA

Daily Raptor Counts: Apr 24, 2019
Species	Day's Count	Month Total	Season Total
Black Vulture	0	0	0
Turkey Vulture	0	233	573
Osprey	47	345	346
Bald Eagle	1	25	70
Northern Harrier	12	120	126
Sharp-shinned Hawk	19	341	356
Cooper's Hawk	1	31	50
Northern Goshawk	0	2	3
Red-shouldered Hawk	1	40	93
Broad-winged Hawk	979	2450	2450
Red-tailed Hawk	0	75	169
Rough-legged Hawk	0	0	2
Golden Eagle	0	0	0
American Kestrel	3	342	368
Merlin	3	35	40
Peregrine Falcon	0	1	2
Unknown Accipiter	0	2	3
Unknown Buteo	0	3	5
Unknown Falcon	0	3	5
Unknown Eagle	0	0	0
Unknown Raptor	0	9	10
Total:	1066	4057	4671

Observation start time:	11:00:00
Observation end time:	16:00:00
Total observation time:	4.5 hours
Official Counter	Zane Baker
Observers:	Dave Fensore, Derek Lovitch

Visitors:
11 visitors today.

Weather:
Another delayed start today. I monitored the conditions at the mountain throughout the morning. Fog and drizzle kept the summit covered well enough to hold off on going up. Skies would start to brighten up and then go right back to fog and drizzle. I opened up at 12:30pm and the visibility still wasn't great, maybe a mile and a half. A little mist rolled through a few times before clearing out. Fog took more than an hour to finally disappear. Temperatures were comfortable for most of the count period, in the high 40s. In the last hour of the count temps started to drop a bit. Winds at the summit were very calm and a little variable in direction but most of the breezes that could be felt had an easterly component, which is also what the jetport had been reporting. By the end of the day, with the dense clouds blocking the sun, any heat distortion had vanished and our visibility was excellent.

Raptor Observations:
This turned into an unexpected day. The weather predictions and the actual conditions didn't seem very good for raptor migration but the birds must have thought otherwise. Similar to last Friday, things went from zero to one hundred really fast. There hadn't been much happening until I decided to scan with the scope at which point I landed on a Kettle of about 30 Broadwings. For much of the following couple hours I spent most of my time with my eye glued to the scope. Each time I though I had counted the Broadwings in one kettle and sorted out the oddballs like a few Harriers or Sharpies, I would run into another kettle. Birds just kept on coming. Most of what was being seen today was well out in front of the mountain or was moving inland through The Gap, heading NNW. Only a handfull of birds made it directly over the summit. As quickly as birds took to the skies things came to a bit of a grinding halt around 3:30pm. A few more migrants were counted later in the afternoon but nowhere near the numbers seen earlier.

Non-raptor Observations:
Not a Bad day for Cormorant migration with a total of 492 birds moving north. There were probably many more but my attention was on the raptors. Mixed in among the Broadwings today were five Great Blue Herons flying beak to feet. A singing Black-and-white Warbler was a nice new addition to the species list for the season.

Predictions:
I'm not entirely sure what to make of the weather predictions and how to speculate as to whether there will be birds tomorrow. Having over one thousand birds on a day with east winds seems kind of bizarre, so it's possible the north, turning southerly winds won't be so bad for a flight tomorrow. There shouldn't be much moisture hanging around and the skies should have some breaks of sun to help generate thermals. Temps may be a few degrees warmer than today.

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Report submitted by Jeannette Lovitch (freeportwildbird@yahoo.com)
Bradbury Mountain State Park information may be found at: www.freeportwildbirdsupply.com/bradbury-mountain-hawkwatch
More information at hawkcount.org: [Site Profile] [Day Summary] [Month Summary]

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