Mount Lorette
Alberta, Canada

Visitors:
About 25 visitors came to the site, and a few helped with binoculars. A combined group of students from multiple schools stopped by for an educational visit about the eagles.

Weather:
The temperature at the start of the count was -6ºC, rising to 6ºC and falling to 4 at the day’s end. The sky was totally covered with low-lying cloud, and none of the ridges were visible until around 10:00. Wind came from the north until 12:30, when it changed to W and SW for the remainder of the day. It blew at 1-2 Beaufort in the morning and 3-4 in the afternoon with some very intense gusts. One unexpected gust at 16:25 nearly carried us into the river! The weather station at the Nakiska Ridgetop is still not working, but the snow plumes on the ridges indicated very strong westerly wind at that level. Cloud coverage averaged about 40% and included cumulus, stratocumulus, and by the end of the day was mainly cirrostratus.

Raptor Observations:
All but a handful of birds used the east ridges. At first, we located the majority of the birds at Mount Lorette. But as the day progressed, we discovered their flight path extremely high above the North Fisher range. Near the end of the day, they flew straight over Lorette without stopping to fly across the escarpment and onto McGillivray, as did most of the birds today. Aging was exceedingly difficult due to atmospheric humidity, distance of flight, backlight conditions, and flight style. Also, because of the high winds, many of the eagles glided with wings tucked in. The total number of raptors was: 187 golden Eagles (76 a, 2 sa, 1 j, 7 ui, 101 u), 12 Bald Eagles ( 7a, 4 sa, 1j), 1 American Goshawk. A resident Golden Eagle, American Goshawk and Bald Eagles were seen.

Non-raptor Observations:
The Northern Pygmy-owl sounded throughout the day, and the male Mountain Bluebird made an appearance before the Northern Shrike appeared. Other birds included 40 European Starlings, 3 American Robins, 3 Varied Thrush, 1 Northern Flicker, Pine Siskins, 1 Mountain Chickadee, Dark-eyed Juncos, Hairy Woodpecker, 1 Bohemian Waxwing, 12 Canada Geese, Ravens.

Report submitted by ()
Mount Lorette information may be found at: eaglewatch.ca
More information at hawkcount.org: [Site Profile] [Day Summary] [Month Summary]
Count data submitted via Trektellen.org – [Project Details]

Visitors:
11 visitors throughout the day brought their own binoculars and stopped to help spot. Some staying for several hours and being the first to spot several migrants. Thank-you very much for the help! Many other visitors stopped to say high, observers were too busy counting raptors to count total visitors today.

Weather:
The temperature was -6 C at the start of the count rising to a high of 2 C and falling to 0 C at count’s end. Surface winds were generally Beaufort 2-3 from the SW with a few gusts up to Beaufort 5. Nakiska Ridgetop was not recording wind data, but large plumes of snow off ridge lines were visible most of the day indicating strong ridgetop, and high level, winds from the west. Cloud cover was scattered throughout the day with heavier cloud cover to the west and mostly open to the east, cloud types were generally cumulus, stratocumulus and altostratus.

Raptor Observations:
The count ended up with 331 migrant raptors including 312 Golden Eagles (121 a, 12 ui, 179 u), 13 Bald Eagles (6 a, 6 sa, 1 j) 1 American Goshawk, 1 Merlin, 1 unknown accipitrine , 1 unknown eagle and 2 unknown raptor. Raptor flight today was generally very high over the ridges and very fast. Fast tucked glides and little time spent soaring made aging difficult. The flight path was high over the east ridge for most of the day with the odd eagle seen over Nakiska. Around 17:00 MST there was a major switch in the flightpath with a large push of eagles going over the west ridges. Strong backlit conditions on the west ridge at this time made aging impossible. Non-migrant raptors included a resident American Goshawk, one resident Golden Eagle and two resident Bald Eagles.

Non-raptor Observations:
The Northern Pygmy-owl was heard calling several times in the afternoon, but was not seen. Also notable was a lone male Mountain Bluebird and a Northern Shrike which both made an appearance in the last hour of the count. Other non-raptors seen include: 3 Varied Thrush, 2 Northern Flickers, 1 Song Sparrow, 14 Bohemian Waxwings, 5 Dark-eyed Juncos, 2 Canada Geese, 1 Canada Jay, Black-capped Chickadee, Pine Siskin, American Robin, European Starling, and Common Raven were present.

Report submitted by ()
Mount Lorette information may be found at: eaglewatch.ca
More information at hawkcount.org: [Site Profile] [Day Summary] [Month Summary]
Count data submitted via Trektellen.org – [Project Details]