[Maine-birds] Fwd: Bradbury Mountain State Park (27 Apr 2024) 58 Raptors

Bradbury Mountain State Park
Pownal, Maine, USA

Daily Raptor Counts: Apr 27, 2024
Species	Day's Count	Month Total	Season Total
Black Vulture	0	0	0
Turkey Vulture	0	355	628
Osprey	10	381	382
Bald Eagle	2	20	42
Northern Harrier	1	125	137
Sharp-shinned Hawk	11	353	371
Cooper's Hawk	1	16	28
American Goshawk	0	1	1
Red-shouldered Hawk	0	8	30
Broad-winged Hawk	21	1185	1185
Red-tailed Hawk	0	19	49
Rough-legged Hawk	0	0	0
Golden Eagle	0	0	0
American Kestrel	7	289	289
Merlin	5	37	43
Peregrine Falcon	0	1	2
Unknown Accipiter	0	9	9
Unknown Buteo	0	4	4
Unknown Falcon	0	10	11
Unknown Eagle	0	0	0
Unknown Raptor	0	14	14
Total:	58	2827	3225

Observation start time:	08:00:00
Observation end time:	16:00:00
Total observation time:	8 hours
Official Counter	Zane Baker
Observers:	Ben Fortin, Biz Houghton, Derek Lovitch, Jim Pinfold, Ophelia Falls, Rich Fortin

Visitors:
The weekend event seemed like a hit, with a lot of people attending the different workshops and talks. The Hawkwatch ID workshop had 21 people listening to Derek share history and knowledge about hawk-counting. Thankfully people were able to put some of their new knowledge to the test as a few different species came by during that time period. 59 visitors and many more just passing by today. My young friend Ophelia came back to help me and now holds the title for youngest birder to correctly ID a countable migrant in the fastest time on the first try. 5 years old? Osprey seen and identified in 1.03 seconds!

Weather:
The weather was nice for the Feathers Over Freeport event, which hasn't always been the case historically. The day started out dead calm and warm in the sun. Skies were mostly clear until late morning when some high cirrus clouds began to move in from the W. Temps climbed into the upper 50's by midday but started to drop again as the morning NNW winds increased and swung around to the SSE and S for the afternoon. By the final couple hours the skies were mostly cloudy but it was still bright and the winds were gusty at times, pushing in some cool ocean air.

Raptor Observations:
It seemed like we might have a tough time finding birds for visitors attending the weekend event, with bright blue skies and only one bird for the first hour. Thankfully more birds started to trickle through and a few of them passed close to or over the summit. We had some nice looks at Merlin, Broad-winged Hawks and Eagles today. Birds were finding lift easily in the first third of the day and seemed to have been a little lower in the final two thirds when the winds came up and temps dropped. Some of the disputes between Red-tails and Eagles and Sharp-shinned vs Cooper's were fun to watch today.

Non-raptor Observations:
One of my favorite summertime sounds was heard once this morning for the first time this season, that being a Black-throated Green Warbler's song. A few Red Crossbills made a low pass on the summit in plain sight which was cool, as they have been very sneaky lately, only being heard and not seen. A fast moving bird caused a bit of a startle in the second it took to identify it, which was a Pigeon and fairly rare for this site. We tried making it into something more rare. 29 species were seen or heard today. Northbound birds include: 91 Double-crested Cormorants 10 Tree Swallows 1 Barn Swallow 1 Palm Warbler 1 Purple Finch 1 Rock Pigeon

Predictions:
I'm really hoping tomorrow's winds remain light, as I think it could be good, or if the winds speed up maybe similar to today. The cloud cover tomorrow should be helpful for spotting but maybe not enough to block thermal production. Temps should be mild and in the low 50's. The winds are looking to be mostly southerly.

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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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