September 16th - Broad-wings and More Broad-wings!

Wow, what a day! Between 12:00 PM and 4:15 PM we saw several large kettles of Broad-winged Hawks circling in the air over the north end of the park. Many of the birds were distant and not seen by all watchers unfortunately. One kettle had 150 birds in it, what a beautiful sight! Our previous record was 225 Broad-winged Hawks for the entire season, today we saw a total of 605. Our season total now stands at 741 BWs and counting!

Today:
Turkey Vulture - 11
Osprey - 4
Bald Eagle - 3 (adult 3:30, juvenile 3:40 x2)
Northern Harrier - 7
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 43
Northern Goshawk - 1
Broad-winged Hawk - 605
Red-tailed Hawk - 2
American Kestrel - 13
Merlin - 1
Peregrine Falcon - 1
Total - 691

To Date:
Turkey Vulture - 27
Osprey - 58
Bald Eagle - 25
Northern Harrier - 59
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 748
Cooper's Hawk - 14
Northern Goshawk - 2
Broad-winged Hawk - 741
Red-tailed Hawk - 9
American Kestrel - 211
Merlin - 37
Peregrine Falcon - 4
Total - 1935

Mike Dizonno (Mike 3) was kind enough to share the following raptor photos with us:

Sharp-shinned Hawk

Northern Harrier

Turkery Vulture

Northern Goshawk

Red-tailed Hawk

The park was fairly quiet today for non-raptor species. A few more Blue Jays were observed flying over the park this morning and Monarch butterflies continue their migration south.

Our peanut-eatin' pal.

An excellent shot of our Watch site.

Watchers today included: Terry 2, Norm, Pat, Richard, Mike 3, BIGFRANK, Betty, Bruce, Cori, Hugh, and we welcomed newbies Allison, and Sherry. Thanks again everyone for your help.

Walter