Season 17 (16 of viable data) is in the books! Thank you to Zane Baker for his effort, dedication, and unwavering spirit. It was a challenging season at times, and we thank Zane and our cadre of regulars for fighting through some long days. As I have always said, the best hawkwatchers are made on the slow days…and we had a bunch of them this year. It was certainly an anomalous spring, with some high counts and several really low counts. We'll analyze the data soon, and submit it to the Raptor Population Index where it will be one small part of a complex puzzle.
Thanks again to Zane, and to Bradbury Mountain State Park (especially Park Manger Chris Silsbee) for hosting and facilitating the project.
We'll see you next spring!
-Derek
Bradbury Mountain State Park
Pownal, Maine, USA
Daily Raptor Counts: May 15, 2023 Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total Black Vulture 0 0 2 Turkey Vulture 0 0 500 Osprey 1 28 279 Bald Eagle 0 16 69 Northern Harrier 1 8 84 Sharp-shinned Hawk 0 72 383 Cooper's Hawk 0 6 38 Northern Goshawk 0 0 2 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 4 54 Broad-winged Hawk 6 136 2023 Red-tailed Hawk 0 10 76 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 1 1 American Kestrel 1 19 270 Merlin 0 15 67 Peregrine Falcon 0 0 4 Unknown Accipiter 0 1 8 Unknown Buteo 0 3 4 Unknown Falcon 0 0 4 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 5 21 Total: 9 324 3889
Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 16:00:00 Total observation time: 8 hours Official Counter Zane Baker Observers: Biz Houghton, Dave Fensore, Derek Lovitch, Dick Baker, Jeannette Lovitch, Jen Baker
Visitors:
A big thanks to Derek and Jeannette and their store, which sponsors this site, Freeport Wild Bird Supply for having me back for my fifth season. Hawkwatching and this site have some sentimental value and I really enjoy being up there for those two months. Thank you to everyone who came up and contributed to the data set by helping me look for birds, stay on birds, and identify birds when I couldn't get a look. I appreciate the help from Dave Fensore, Jim Pinfold who helped in every way along with answering questions from the public, providing some good conversation and a number of laughs. (We should've kept the phone guys). Rick, thanks for staying with me on the cold early days. I'm sorry we couldn't find a Gos' for ya. Biz thanks for the dedication and the conversations, always a pleasure. We had some newer folks to the site this year too who were very helpful and showed a lot of patience, which is needed for this activity. Thanks for sticking it out during the slower days when very little was flying.
Weather:
It was a relatively nice day at the mountain for the final hours of the 2023 season. The forecast was a little off from what we expected but not bad. Temps remained a little lower than anticipated and in the high 60's. There was a lot more cloud cover than I thought we'd see but it made for a decent hawkcounting sky. The winds were blowing fairly strong in the afternoon just as a reminder of what we had been dealing with all season.
Raptor Observations:
Well, another season is in the books. It was a lot of fun and a little frustrating at times. We ended the season below our average for total birds and for many of the species we typically see. Some of the birds ended above average, such as Broad-wings and Turkey Vultures. We're curious as to where all the immature 'wings ended up. This season was very windy, and the strength and direction of the winds were not propitious for birds trying to fly to the north. Only in the last week did we start seeing immature Broad-wings coming through and we have wondered whether there are many more to our south which will trickle in over the next week or two, or did many of these birds get pushed slightly off coarse on the days we experienced SE winds, essentially moving them inland further to our south, leaving us unable to detect them by the time they got this far north. We may never know. Today's start seemed promising as I found a small group of Buteos and an Osprey soaring together. All the birds started to stream north once they reached the top of the thermal they were in, following the Osprey. However, one by one each 'wing would peel off from the pack and start heading south, also displaying at times. I was only able to count the one Osprey from the group. So much for a push of birds on the final day. The rest of count period was pretty slow, with a slight uptick in the final two hours. Local birds were only slightly more active today than the previous couple of days.
Non-raptor Observations:
After speaking with Derek about the delayed migration season and why many warblers were so quiet, in short, because they're late and need food to improve fecundity (success from knockin' boots!) and aren't gonna waste time on the acoustic jibber-jabber, I decided to spend a few minutes below the summit, on a ledge below the canopy to watch for movement. It was successful, as I found birds which I wouldn't have known were there including: Black-throated Green Warbler Black-and-white Warbler Magnolia Warbler Blackburnian Warbler American Redstart Indigo Bunting Lincoln's Sparrow RIP Hawkwatch Junco ?-2023
Predictions:
Not happenin'. Maybe if it looked like SW.
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]
0 comments:
Post a Comment