Sep 20th & 21st - The Weekend

Strong winds from the south mixed with periods of rain showers and thunder storms made for slow weekend of hawkwatching.  Only 27 birds were counted over the past two days.  With good NW wind predicted for tomorrow, hopefully we'll add some big numbers to our count.

Today:
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 12
Cooper's Hawk - 1
American Kestrel - 2
Merlin - 1
Peregrine Falcon - 1
Total - 17

Yesterday:
Osprey - 1
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 4
Cooper's Hawk - 1
Peregrine Falcon - 1
Total - 7

To Date:
Turkey Vulture - 102
Osprey - 115
Bald Eagle - 58
Northern Harrier - 48
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 1313
Cooper's Hawk - 18
Northern Goshawk - 0
Red-shouldered Hawk - 0
Broad-winged Hawk - 1294
Red-tailed Hawk - 23
Rough-legged Hawk - 0
Golden Eagle - 0
American Kestrel - 204
Merlin - 63
Peregrine Falcon - 6
Total - 3244

Here's a selection of photos from Saturday...

Osprey (Lee)

local Red-tailed Hawk being closely watched by a Cooper's Hawk (Ann)

local Red-tailed Hawk (Lee)

Peregrine Falcon (Patty)

local Turkey Vultures (Lee)

Sharp-shinned Hawk (Lee)

 A good shot of some of the folks gathered on Saturday (Patty)

These 2 shots are mock-ups but they truly recapture some of the 'unexpected' events of last week's hawkwatching at Rosetta...

Don being attacked by one of the Red-tailed Hawks (Kris)

 

 Yours truly under attack by a Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Kris)

And this is one of the Common Ravens that flew over the park on Saturday...

The pair were seen flying over the park together 3 times over the weekend (Lee)

My thanks to the many people who came out over the weekend to enjoy the birds, the flowers and the park itself.  I'd especially like to thank Murray for setting up another 'Meetup' at the Hawk Watch, an annual event now.  On Saturday we hosted somewhere between 30 and 40 extra people that were mostly new to hawkwatching and the park.  Birds unfortunately were a little thin but the amazing weather and all the camaraderie sure made the day extremely fun.  So many new happy smiling faces that I hope will someday return when we're just a little bit busier hawk-wise.  I'd also like to thank Murray's wife Debbie for sharing her homemade blueberry tarts and Rice Krispy squares with everyone - oh my, they were tasty!

Another great event that happened on Saturday was the release of two small songbirds back to the wild.  Our friend Sarah, who volunteers with the FLAP program in the city was kind enough to bring a Nashville Warbler and Swainson's Thrush down to the park.  Both birds had recently suffered slight injury from window strikes but were given the 'green light' to be released.  It's always a wonderful feeling to see birds and animals being set free once again.  Click here to watch the video.  Thankyou for choosing RMG for their release Sarah!

The Monarch butterflies have been a little less frequent over the last two days.  We tallied 50+ on Saturday and 27 on Sunday.  The next few days will give us a better indication as to whether the migration is coming to an end in our area or not.  Our work counting the butterflies has not gone unnoticed of course, today the Toronto Star newspaper ran an article about the migration and mentioned one of our 1000+ day counts at Rosetta.  Without all of your help spotting them everywhere they fly the numbers would never be has good as they are.  I thank you all.  Please click here to read the full story.

The weather for tomorrow (Monday) from weatherunderground.com:  Intervals of clouds and sunshine. High near 15C. Winds NW at 15 to 30 km/h.

See ya there!

Walter