[Maine-birds] Fwd: Bradbury Mountain State Park (26 Apr 2022) 299 Raptors

Bradbury Mountain State Park
Pownal, Maine, USA

Daily Raptor Counts: Apr 26, 2022
Species	Day's Count	Month Total	Season Total
Black Vulture	0	1	1
Turkey Vulture	0	285	470
Osprey	18	222	223
Bald Eagle	0	20	80
Northern Harrier	0	58	73
Sharp-shinned Hawk	32	436	466
Cooper's Hawk	4	26	43
Northern Goshawk	0	1	3
Red-shouldered Hawk	0	26	120
Broad-winged Hawk	236	1190	1190
Red-tailed Hawk	2	31	132
Rough-legged Hawk	0	0	0
Golden Eagle	0	0	0
American Kestrel	4	230	240
Merlin	1	28	32
Peregrine Falcon	0	0	3
Unknown Accipiter	0	5	6
Unknown Buteo	0	4	5
Unknown Falcon	1	3	3
Unknown Eagle	0	0	0
Unknown Raptor	1	12	13
Total:	299	2578	3103

Observation start time:	08:00:00
Observation end time:	15:15:00
Total observation time:	7.25 hours
Official Counter	Derek Lovitch, Jeannette Lovitch
Observers:	Jeannette Lovitch, Jim Pinfold, Rich Fortin

Visitors:
Not a lot of people out and about at Bradbury today. 3 people visited us at the Hawkwatch. Those who did enjoyed seeing raptors with the unaided eye.

Weather:
The weather today was more amenable than we had expected. Winds were out of the south almost all day ahead of a very slow-moving cold front. Cloud cover held tight with just a few peeks of sun in the middle of the day. Some showers and drizzle moved through in short bouts, but didn't last long, until 3:50 EDT when Derek closed down the count. A brief improvement in visibility officially reopened the count 10 minutes later, until steadier rain finally shut down the count for good at 4:10 EDT.

Raptor Observations:
The first two hours were pretty empty of birds. Then, all of sudden, Broad-winged Hawks started popping up. For the next 4 hours we were scanning the skies for distant kettles, while birds were also moving west to east low over the summit - some of the best looks at hawks we have had in a while. It was a fun day once hawks started moving. Very few birds required a scope to spot and identify today, for a most-welcome change.

Non-raptor Observations:
30 species were seen or heard from the summit today. Not a lot were marked down as migrants, but species that were included: 23 Tree Swallows, 11 Yellow-rumped Warblers (including a total of 9 in the afternoon still migrating northward high overhead), 4 Mallards, 3 Canada Geese, 1 Double-crested Cormorant, 1 Belted Kingfisher, and 1 Palm Warbler.

Predictions:
An area of low pressure is forecast to move up along the cold front tonight, bringing heavy rain overnight. Tomorrow is unlikely to be a total washout, but it might be one of those annoying days with on-again, off-again rain, and on-again, off-again hawkwatching. Well, hopefully some hawkwatching...light northwesterly winds are much less favorable to producing a flight on overcast skies than today's southerly winds. But we didn't expect nearly 300 birds today, either, so at this point, why do we even bother with this section? ;) Just go hawkwatching!

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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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