September 5th - 17 Bald Eagles!!!

First off I'd like to thank everyone for an amazing job in finding so many birds up in all that blue sky.  Not a single decent cloud to use as a reference!  The totals would not be near as high if it wasn't for all your searching and pointing.  This was likely the hardest day for hawk watching that I've ever experienced.  The best line of the day was, "It's up in the blue!"  Also, my thanks to those who helped out with our first Pizza Day of the season.  It was great to see so many people out.

We managed to see and identify 11 of our 15 species of regularly seen raptors.  The other 4 species do not fly early in the migration.....so we saw everything we could.  We may have missed a few birds up there but what we saw was spectacular!

Today:
Turkey Vulture - 11
Osprey - 7
Bald Eagle - 17
Northern Harrier - 1
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 141
Cooper's Hawk - 1
Broad-winged Hawk - 44
Red-tailed Hawk - 8
American Kestrel - 50
Merlin - 3
Peregrine Falcon - 1
Total - 284

To Date:
Turkey Vulture - 17
Osprey - 47
Bald Eagle - 26
Northern Harrier - 9
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 303
Cooper's Hawk - 4
Northern Goshawk - 0
Red-shouldered Hawk - 0
Broad-winged Hawk - 54
Red-tailed Hawk - 26
Rough-legged Hawk - 0
Golden Eagle - 0
American Kestrel - 73
Merlin - 10
Peregrine Falcon - 3
Total - 572

Eagle Time (EDT):
10:45 AM - BE adult
11:05 AM - BE immature (non-adult)
11:25 AM - BE immature (non-adult)
11:40 AM - BE immature (non-adult)
11:44 AM - BE immature (non-adult)
12:10 PM - BE adult
12:10 PM - BE adult
12:29 PM - BE adult
12:29 PM - BE adult
01:00 PM - BE immature (non-adult)
01:00 PM - BE immature (non-adult)
01:15 PM - BE immature (non-adult)
01:35 PM - BE immature (non-adult)
03:00 PM - BE immature (non-adult)
03:05 PM - BE immature (non-adult)
03:14 PM - BE immature (non-adult)
03:14 PM - BE immature (non-adult)

Trudy sent along this lovely photo...

Bald Eagle

Paul got this beautiful shot...

Sharp-shinned Hawk

 

Today we counted 7 Common Loons, 10 Monarch butterflies, and 1 more Giant Swallowtail.  A real treat was seeing our first Common Nighthawk of the season.  A second one was seen flying over the park a while later.

 

 A female Monarch

 

Many dedicated spotters and watchers out today including: Peter, Paul, Kris, Ron, Berle, Betty, Dave, Carol, Richard, Cori, Trudy, Terry, Bruce, plus several others.  Again, thank you all!!!

 

SW 15 km/h wind for tomorrow, see you at the park.

 

Walter