Friday, August 26, 2011

Fall Hawkwatching - August 19-25

The fourth week of August produced a couple of days of nice hawkwatching. The northern sites had two good days—August 21 and 22. Corpus Christi’s best day was August 24, when they reported 1060 Mississippi kites.

At the northern sites, a total of 85 Bald Eagles were counted on the 22nd, with Bake Oven and nearby Hawk Mountain Pennsylvania leading the way each with 16. Waggoner’s Gap wasn’t far behind with 14 counted that day. The same day also saw Hawk Mountain count 26 American Kestrels, more than half of the total 48 counted through all the sites.

When it comes to eagles, Hawk Ridge in Duluth, Minnesota, now has the daily high count of the season so far, with 23 seen on August 24, a third of the 73 total birds counted that day. Their best day of the week overall was August 22 with 170 total raptors.

Osprey counts are also trending upwards, the best day saw a total of 51 counted across 19 sites on August 22. A total of 162 Broad-winged Hawks were counted on August 21, but no one site had the bulk of that number.

More watches opened up this week, though some are not yet counting daily. Washington Monument, Maryland; Tussey Mountain, Pennsylvania; Chestnut Ridge and Franklin Mtn., both New York, and Quaker Ridge, Connecticut, are the ones that seem to be reporting daily to HawkCount this week.

Hurricane Irene will likely shut down most of the eastern sites this weekend, so any birds that fly will either move ahead of that storm or slip to the west. Perhaps the Great Lakes sites or even Allegheny Front will see some action.

No comments:

Post a Comment