November 3rd - A Little Stronger Wind Please!

Today was a fine example of what happens when you've got good wind direction but not good wind speed.  After reviewing today's report from Cranberry Marsh in Whitby, we saw only one-fifth of the raptors that they saw within roughly the same time period.  Stronger wind would've kept many of their birds much closer to the lake and likely within our view once they passed our area.  It happens!  On a happier note, we did have a beautiful view of 3 Rough-legged Hawks flying along together above us.  Two of the three were dark morph birds.

Today:
Turkey Vulture - 6
Bald Eagle - 1
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 2
Cooper's Hawk - 1
Red-shouldered Hawk - 1
Red-tailed Hawk - 25
Rough-legged Hawk - 4
Total - 40

To Date:
Turkey Vulture - 1663
Osprey - 117
Bald Eagle - 103
Northern Harrier - 118
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 1571
Cooper's Hawk - 43
Northern Goshawk - 6
Red-shouldered Hawk - 14
Broad-winged Hawk - 139
Red-tailed Hawk - 542
Rough-legged Hawk - 15
Golden Eagle - 2
American Kestrel - 470
Merlin - 59
Peregrine Falcon - 51
Total - 4913

Eagle Time (EST):
11:42 AM - BE immature (non-adult)

Here are a few photos from the day...

Turkey Vulture (Ann)

 

Juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk (Elias)

 

Turkey Vulture (Mike D)

Rough-legged Hawks (Mike D)

We are now down to just 143 more birds needed to reach the 50,000 mark.  My guess is that 50,000th bird will be a Red-tailed Hawk!

Another 5 migrating Loons were counted this morning.  It would appear that the Monarch migration is now over for the season.  A total of 1467 butterflies were counted between August 29th and October 28th.  This is quite a dramatic decrease in their numbers as we all know.  Hopefully within the next year or two we'll start to see things turn around for these little beauties.

20+ watchers today made the day very enjoyable.  Thank you once again for all of your help.

Walter