Bradbury Mountain State Park
Pownal, Maine, USA
Daily Raptor Counts: Apr 21, 2020
Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total
Black Vulture 0 1 1
Turkey Vulture 0 290 557
Osprey 13 155 155
Bald Eagle 1 8 82
Northern Harrier 0 28 32
Sharp-shinned Hawk 11 224 244
Cooper's Hawk 2 27 34
Northern Goshawk 0 4 6
Red-shouldered Hawk 0 14 61
Broad-winged Hawk 38 311 311
Red-tailed Hawk 0 44 118
Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0
Golden Eagle 0 0 0
American Kestrel 12 115 117
Merlin 3 48 50
Peregrine Falcon 0 1 1
Unknown Accipiter 0 7 11
Unknown Buteo 0 2 5
Unknown Falcon 0 2 3
Unknown Eagle 0 0 1
Unknown Raptor 0 8 9
Total: 80 1289 1798
Observation start time: 08:00:00
Observation end time: 13:30:00
Total observation time: 5.5 hours
Official Counter Derek Lovitch, Jeannette Lovitch
Observers:
Visitors:
8 people stopped by to chat today, but few stayed long. Most other visitors to the summit just blew right back into the woods.
Weather:
Skies started off mostly clear, but clouds began to rapidly increase by mid-morning ahead of an approaching cold front. After a cold but rather pleasant start to the morning, southerly winds began to kick up just as the hawkwatch got underway, with gusty winds increasing by 8:30 EST and soon becoming quite strong, but not quite making it to Advisory Criteria. After a couple of brief showers, rain, mixing with graupel, brought the count to an early end.
Raptor Observations:
Unlike many of our previous days, birds were often low and close today, thanks to the winds. It would have been a great day for raptor photography, but I was too busy holding my scope upright. As opposed to recent storms that approached from the south, cutting off our pipeline of migrants, this was a more classic (and rather strong) cold front approaching from the west, thereby allowing a nice little push of pre-frontal migration. It would have been better if winds were southwesterly instead of straight southerly, but the first couple of hours of the day produced a decent flight. The local adult NORTHERN GOSHAWK made two very close passes this morning, first crossing right in front of the summit at eye-level, heading east around the mountain, and then again at 10:52 when it glided right overhead and drifted south out over the coastal plain.
Non-raptor Observations:
Only 27 species were heard and/or seen from the summit as the strong wind precluded detection of many of the common forest residents. Other species deemed migrating: 128 Double-crested Cormorants 7 Tree Swallows 4 American Goldfinches 2 Common Loons 2 Yellow-rumped Warblers 2 Common Grackles
Predictions:
The cold front will clear the area early in the night, with winds shifting from west to northwest by morning. It's going to be another rather windy and gusty day, but if winds are a little lighter than currently forecast, we might see birds on the move - at this time of the season, anything other than terrible conditions will allow us to tally at least some migrants.
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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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