Oct 11th - Soaring to New Heights!

First off, my apologies for this late post but after being at the park for 11 hours I had to have a bit of a snooze!  Hope you understand.

Wow, our fourth day in a row of decent wind and the birds didn't stop.  What a wonderful day of hawkwatching.  Today we broke three records including our over-all bird count total.  Our old record for a full season of counting at Rosetta was 7267 raptors, after today our count for the 2014 season stands at an amazing 8152 raptors.....and it's only October 11th!!!  Also today, our Turkey Vulture and Sharp-shinned Hawk totals were pushed to new heights.  Because the Vultures didn't show signs of slowing, they kept me going until 5:45 PM!

Today:
Turkey Vulture - 1234
Bald Eagle - 6
Northern Harrier - 18
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 237
Cooper's Hawk - 4
Red-shouldered Hawk - 8
Broad-winged Hawk - 9
Red-tailed Hawk - 28
American Kestrel - 24
Merlin - 7
Peregrine Falcon - 2
Total - 1577

To Date:
Turkey Vulture - 2404 (new 'Year' record!)
Osprey - 139
Bald Eagle - 87
Northern Harrier - 179
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 2965 (new 'Year' record!)
Cooper's Hawk - 68
Northern Goshawk - 2
Red-shouldered Hawk - 8
Broad-winged Hawk - 1417
Red-tailed Hawk - 89
Rough-legged Hawk - 0
Golden Eagle - 0
American Kestrel - 618
Merlin - 112
Peregrine Falcon - 64
Total - 8152 (new 'Year' record!)

Eagle Time (EDT):
11:29 AM - BE
12:35 PM - BE x2
12:50 PM - BE x2
03:40 PM - BE

The calm before the storm!  (Walter)

Celebrating another record! (Lee)

A high-flying adult Bald Eagle (Lee)

Kettling Turkey Vultures (Lee)

A young Broad-winged Hawk (Mike D)

American Kestrel (Mike D)

Sharp-shinned Hawk (Mike D)

A few other birds of note today included - several Brown Creepers, a few small flocks of Eastern Bluebirds flying overhead, as well as a Cackling Goose mixed in with a flock of Canada Geese.

 Cackling Goose - third bird from the bottom in the lower right corner (Lee)

Due to the large movement of hawks, Monarchs were somewhat ignored.  My best guess would be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 200 moving across the sky.

A huge thankyou to everyone who attended and helped out today - Phil, Sarah, Dave & Mary Beth, Trudy, John, Ron, Sheldon, Gary & Wei Li and Cecilia, Betty, Sonja, Patty, Pat & Nancy, Margaret, Peter, MC, Lee, Eleanor, Maurilio & Karen and Elliott and Elise.  I know I've missed someone's name, my apologies.  Without your kind support, none of this would be possible.

Sunday's predicted light SE wind might not bring a lot our way.  That's OK though, we deserve a break!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Walter