Mount Lorette (11 Mar 2025) 39 Raptors

Visitors:
Only five people stopped to ask about the count. Thanks to Jim for staying for a few hours and helping to spot, and to Ed for keeping us company during the waning hours of the day.

Weather:
In terms of clouds and temperature, it was a fairly typical day at the site. The temperature started out at -2C, rose all the way to +3C, and was 0C at the end. It started out mostly sunny with a few cumulus clouds, and as the day wore on, the cumulus clouds increased, and stratus clouds developed over the south and western parts of the valley, until most of the west ridge was obscured and the south part of the valley was totally socked in. A few stray snowflakes danced in the air around us. Things began to clear up towards the end of the day. Ground wind, mostly from the west, was calm in the morning, becoming stronger in the afternoon with a few gusts strong enough to knock stuff over, then calming down. Ridge winds were the opposite – the air above the ridges was thick with flying snow early in the day. Blowing snow was barely detectable mid-afternoon, but it built up again in the late afternoon. Ridge winds appeared to come from the south-southwest. Upper winds were moderate from the west most of the day.

Raptor Observations:
The first migrants were detected shortly before noon, popping up over the east ridge in various place and kiting up high, going straight over our heads and disappearing over Skogan Pass, not going anywhere near Mt Lorette. The Golden Eagles that took this route were travelling as fast as I’ve ever seen an eagle move. They must have had quite a tail wind. As the day wore on, the ridge winds died down a bit, and subsequent eagles were seen taking a more traditional route along the east ridge and over to Mt Lorette, but still quite high and fast. Only three Golden Eagles were seen on the west side of the valley. Of those, only one continued on the west side; the other two moved over towards the east side, then took an abrupt left turn towards Mt Lorette and then off to the northwest. The total was 36 Golden Eagles (32a, 4u), and 2 Bald Eagles (1a, 1j). The juvenile Bald Eagle delighted us by flying low over the river, giving us good looks at its plumage. There was only one eagle that escaped fast enough to avoid identification.
One of the first Bald Eagles was deemed a non-migrant. The last Golden Eagle of the day did a few display dives over Patrick, and then headed in a northwest direction, making us wonder whether it was one of the resident pair, or if it was moving on. When it got to Hummingbird Plume, it did an abrupt turn towards Mt Lorette and we were leaning towards calling it a migrant. It flew into the face of Lorette very low, then soared around until it was at peak height, at which point it headed directly towards Nakiska – one of the residents has returned!

Non-raptor Observations:
There were enough eagles flying by very high that we didn’t have much time to look for other birds lower down. One skein of nine Canada Geese flew north along the east side of the valley. Other than those, there was one Black-billed Magpie, about seven Common Ravens, one Black-capped Chickadee, and one Mountain Chickadee.

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