Mount Lorette (22 Oct 2023) 195 Raptors
Alberta, Canada
| Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 22, 2023 | |||
| Species | Day’s Count | Month Total | Season Total |
| Turkey Vulture | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Osprey | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| Bald Eagle | 7 | 53 | 55 |
| Northern Harrier | 1 | 7 | 8 |
| Sharp-shinned Hawk | 2 | 104 | 134 |
| Cooper’s Hawk | 0 | 7 | 8 |
| American Goshawk | 0 | 27 | 31 |
| Broad-winged Hawk | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| Swainson’s Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Red-tailed Hawk | 1 | 18 | 23 |
| Ferruginous Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Rough-legged Hawk | 6 | 11 | 11 |
| Golden Eagle | 177 | 2382 | 2539 |
| American Kestrel | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Merlin | 0 | 9 | 13 |
| Gyrfalcon | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Peregrine Falcon | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Prairie Falcon | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Unknown Accipiter | 1 | 26 | 44 |
| Unknown Buteo | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| Unknown Falcon | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| Unknown Eagle | 0 | 8 | 9 |
| Unknown Raptor | 0 | 8 | 13 |
| Total: | 195 | 2667 | 2916 |
| Observation start time: | 08:00:00 |
| Observation end time: | 17:30:00 |
| Total observation time: | 9.5 hours |
| Official Counter | Blake Weis |
| Observers: | Allison Zukewich |
Visitors:
About five people stopped to chat. Thanks to the three who came to watch migration!
Weather:
In the morning the mountains were draped in low clouds, obscuring all the ridges except for Skogan Pass and Hummingbird Plume Hill. The low cloud remained into the early afternoon, then gradually lifted. Cloud cover was 100% for most of the day, which made ageing difficult given the lack of light. Late in the evening it cleared to 40% creating good conditions for spotting and ageing. Ground wind was from variable directions and light, hardly reaching 10 km/h. Ridge wind was from the SW and light in the morning, but it increased later in the day with gusts reaching 44. The temperature was 2C at the beginning of observation. It reached high of 8, then fell to 6.
Raptor Observations:
The total count for the day was 195 migrants including 177 Golden Eagles (95a, 6j, 13sa, 1ui, 62u), 7 Bald Eagles (5a, 1j, 1sa3), 1 Northern Harrier, 2 Sharp-shinned Hawks, 1 Red-tailed Hawk, 6 Rough-legged Hawks, and 1 unidentified small accipiter. Migration was slow early in the day, but as clouds started lifting from the mountains, migrants started appearing in the gaps between clouds. Those birds were very difficult to spot and age as they were just briefly seen. When the clouds had mostly cleared movement picked up very quickly culminating in a high count of 64 migrants (including 60 Golden Eagles) between 4 and 5 pm. Many migrants were flying low (below mountain-top height) and often had to resort to flapping. Later in the day some of them found enough wind to make it up higher. One resident American Goshawk was heard calling.
Non-raptor Observations:
93 Canada Geese migrating high, 30 Mallards migrating high, 4 Common Mergansers flying low along the river, 25 gull sp. migrating high, 2 loon sp. migrating high, 1 Hairy Woodpecker, 1 Pileated Woodpecker, 2 Canada Jays, 5 Common Ravens, 1 Black-capped Chickadee, 3 Mountain Chickadees, 5 Boreal Chickadees, 2 Golden-crowned Kinglets, 1 American Dipper, 60 Bohemian Waxwings, 3 Evening Grosbeaks, 7 Pine Grosbeaks, 15 Common Redpolls, 1 White-winged Crossbill, 2 Pine Siskins, 8 American Tree Sparrows, 1 White-crowned Sparrow
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Mount Lorette information may be found at: eaglewatch.ca
More information at hawkcount.org: [Site Profile] [Day Summary] [Month Summary]
Count data submitted via Dunkadoo – [Project Details]
