[Maine-birds] Fwd: Bradbury Mountain State Park (24 Apr 2024) 68 Raptors

Bradbury Mountain State Park
Pownal, Maine, USA

Daily Raptor Counts: Apr 24, 2024
Species	Day's Count	Month Total	Season Total
Black Vulture	0	0	0
Turkey Vulture	0	355	628
Osprey	9	369	370
Bald Eagle	0	18	40
Northern Harrier	0	121	133
Sharp-shinned Hawk	12	330	348
Cooper's Hawk	1	14	26
American Goshawk	0	1	1
Red-shouldered Hawk	0	8	30
Broad-winged Hawk	40	1151	1151
Red-tailed Hawk	0	19	49
Rough-legged Hawk	0	0	0
Golden Eagle	0	0	0
American Kestrel	2	276	276
Merlin	4	27	33
Peregrine Falcon	0	1	2
Unknown Accipiter	0	7	7
Unknown Buteo	0	4	4
Unknown Falcon	0	9	10
Unknown Eagle	0	0	0
Unknown Raptor	0	14	14
Total:	68	2724	3122

Observation start time:	08:00:00
Observation end time:	16:00:00
Total observation time:	8 hours
Official Counter	Zane Baker
Observers:	Derek Lovitch, Dick Baker, Jen Baker, Jim Pinfold

Visitors:
Mark your calendars for this weekend April 27-28 for Feathers Over Freeport, a birdwatching and nature discovery weekend for all ages. There will be multiple activities, walks and talks and a food truck serving gourmet grilled cheese. Derek will be hosting a raptor ID workshop at 10:30 at the summit just in front of where I'll be working. He'll be discussing the history of the project and hawkwatching and how we go about trying to identify these birds in flight, when they're not always right in your face. Copy and paste the link below for more. https://www.maine.gov/dacf/parks/discover_history_explore_nature/activities/feathers_over_freeport.shtml

Weather:
Today was a mixed bag of weather conditions. The morning started out completely overcast and grey with a light breeze from the SE. Temps started out chilly but started to rise quickly. Suddenly the winds picked up and started blowing hard enough to move trees around, which had me preparing for a long slow day. Winds settled a little bit as the first batch of drizzle/rain approached from the W. The drizzle wasn't too bad but it lasted long enough to don the waterproof gear to prevent being saturated. Rain eventually passed by early afternoon, the skies began to clear and the sun peeked out for a while causing a lot of heat and humidity. by late in the day with only about 40 minutes to go, another rain shower approached and caught us for about a half hour. The rain stopped just in time to leave.

Raptor Observations:
I was hopeful this morning, hoping to get a few birds out ahead of the approaching front. Hawkwatch Junco spotted the first bird of the day for me, which was a Kestrel. A couple more birds pushed N early and I thought I was about to be seeing more but the wind, and soon after, the rain, shut down the flights. In the afternoon once the sun came out it took about 40 minutes for the flights to start up again. While I was waiting for more migrants we got some nice looks at some of the multiple pairs of Broad-winged Hawks out displaying and calling back and forth. More birds were fighting hard to move ahead of the second round of rain and we likely would have seen some more if it had held off for just a little while longer.

Non-raptor Observations:
The area seemed a lot more birdy this morning and some non raptors were also in front of the wet weather. 38 species were identified from the summit today which is a nice change. Northbound birds include: 84 Double Crested Cormorants 15 Tree Swallows 6 Brown-headed Cowbirds 5 Great Blue Herons 2 Red-winged Blackbirds 2 Bar Swallows 3 Red Crossbills 1 Yellow-rumped Warbler 1 Common Grackle

Predictions:
Tomorrow we have winds from the NW in the morning, changing to S with strong gusts in the afternoon. Sounds nice. Temps will be a little cooler than today and in the 40's but the skies should be pretty clear. I am hoping we can pick up where we left off 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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