September 23rd - Turkey Vulture Day!

We sure are getting our share of blue sky this fall.  When I arrived at the park this morning we had pretty good cloud cover but as time went on the clouds disappeared one after the other.  Most birds were seen flying high up.  As afternoon approached the vultures started to soar over the trees.  First it was small groups of 5-10 flying by and then a few hours later the last group was 60 birds strong.  What a sight as they circled overhead!  Even though Turkey Vultures are black, we could have very easily missed some.  Again, thank you everyone for an excellent day of hawk watching!

Today:
Turkey Vulture - 349
Osprey - 3
Bald Eagle - 2
Northern Harrier - 9
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 39
Cooper's Hawk - 2
Broad-winged Hawk - 20
Red-tailed Hawk - 7
American Kestrel - 19
Merlin - 1
Peregrine Falcon - 1
Total - 452

To Date:
Turkey Vulture - 490
Osprey - 102
Bald Eagle - 86
Northern Harrier - 64
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 1184
Cooper's Hawk - 19
Northern Goshawk - 0
Red-shouldered Hawk - 0
Broad-winged Hawk - 139
Red-tailed Hawk - 61
Rough-legged Hawk - 0
Golden Eagle - 0
American Kestrel - 424
Merlin - 30
Peregrine Falcon - 11
Total - 2610

Eagle Time (EDT):
10:48 AM - BE immature (non-adult)
04:36 PM - BE immature (non-adult)

The following photos are courtesy of Ann Brokelman...

Cooper's Hawk

Turkey Vultures

Bald Eagle #86!

Only a couple of Loons flew over, at least that we saw, and 30 Monarchs were counted today.

David, Phil, Dave, Ron & Jean, Betty, Berle, Carol, Terry, Cori, Ann, Byron and likely a couple of others were on hand to help with the spotting.  Also, I'd like to thank Lee and Ann for their field reporting a few kms to the east of our site.  Although we don't always see every bird that they report, it's great when we do.  It also shows if the birds are following the shoreline or not.

It appears that tomorrow's weather will be similar to todays.  More Vultures?

Walter