Mount Lorette (30 Sep 2026) 151 Raptors
Alberta, Canada
| Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 30, 2026 | |||
| Species | Day’s Count | Month Total | Season Total |
| Turkey Vulture | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Osprey | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Bald Eagle | 4 | 10 | 10 |
| Northern Harrier | 2 | 4 | 4 |
| Sharp-shinned Hawk | 14 | 28 | 28 |
| Cooper’s Hawk | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| American Goshawk | 5 | 12 | 12 |
| Broad-winged Hawk | 0 | 5 | 5 |
| Swainson’s Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Red-tailed Hawk | 1 | 12 | 12 |
| Ferruginous Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Rough-legged Hawk | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| Golden Eagle | 118 | 270 | 270 |
| American Kestrel | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Merlin | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Gyrfalcon | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Peregrine Falcon | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Prairie Falcon | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Unknown Accipitrine | 2 | 5 | 5 |
| Unknown Buteo | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Unknown Falcon | 0 | 5 | 5 |
| Unknown Eagle | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| Unknown Raptor | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| Total: | 151 | 370 | 370 |
| Observation start time: | 07:15:00 |
| Observation end time: | 18:30:00 |
| Total observation time: | 11.25 hours |
| Official Counter | Graeme Dunlop |
| Observers: | Peter Lloyd |
Visitors:
At least 300 people passed the site, about 100 stopped to chat and a handful stayed for a while to look for eagles.
Weather:
A cold front had passed through overnight bringing sunny but cooler weather. Fresh snow lay on the mountains above c.2000m. The temperature at 0815 was 0C, the high at 1500 was 8C and it was 3C at 1930. Ridge winds were W-SSW all day 20-50 gusting up to 60 km/h, and it was mostly blue skies with some cumulus clouds providing us with excellent viewing conditions. Patchy early morning inversion fog quickly dissipated.
Raptor Observations:
There was a fairly strong and diverse raptor movement of 151 birds of 10 species between 0830 and 1850 that comprised 4 Bald Eagles (3a, 1sa), 2 Northern Harriers (1 fem/juv, 1 juv), 14 Sharp-shinned Hawks (5a, 9u), 1a Cooper�s Hawk, 5 American Goshawks (4a, 1u), 1 adult Red-tailed Hawk, 1a dark morph Rough-legged Hawk, 118 Golden Eagles (45a, 10juv, 61 u, 2 non-adult), 2 distant Merlins and 1 Prairie Falcon that flew high right over our heads. The highest hourly count was 32 raptors between 1500 and 1600. No raptors were seen on the western ridges. Before noon most of the Golden Eagles were first seen over Skogan Peak before gliding straight over Mt Lorette towards the eastern ridges. Around noon a group of 4 Golden Eagles were seen soaring high over Hummingbird plume before gliding south very high over our heads straight down the valley, all subsequent eagles kept to the eastern ridges but fewer birds were initially seen over Lorette which made locating them a bit more difficult. From mid-afternoon it did seem like an increasing number of eagles were appearing over the eastern ridges having approached unseen from the north east.
Non-raptor Observations:
1 Common Merganser, 1 distant high-flying loon sp., 1 Northern Flicker, 7 American Crows, 19 Common Ravens, 2 Dark-eyed Juncos, 3 Black-capped Chickadees, 1 White crowned Sparrow, 1 juvenile Golden-crowned Sparrow, 4 Ruby-crowned Kinglets, at least 300 American Robins, 1 Northern Flicker, 7 American Pipits, 6 Pine siskins. A Northern Pygmy Owl gave us some nice views for the last hour, calling from a conifer just north of the site.
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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 Trektellen.org – [Project Details]
