Mount Lorette (05 Mar 2026) 22 Raptors
Alberta, Canada
| Daily Raptor Counts: Mar 05, 2026 | |||
| Species | Day’s Count | Month Total | Season Total |
| Turkey Vulture | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Osprey | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Bald Eagle | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| Northern Harrier | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sharp-shinned Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Cooper’s Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| American Goshawk | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Broad-winged Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Swainson’s Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Red-tailed Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Ferruginous Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Rough-legged Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Golden Eagle | 19 | 53 | 53 |
| American Kestrel | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Merlin | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Gyrfalcon | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Peregrine Falcon | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Prairie Falcon | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Unknown Accipitrine | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Unknown Buteo | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Unknown Falcon | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Unknown Eagle | 1 | 5 | 5 |
| Unknown Raptor | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Total: | 22 | 63 | 63 |
| Observation start time: | 10:00:00 |
| Observation end time: | 19:00:00 |
| Total observation time: | 8.5 hours |
| Official Counter | Lynette MacCulloch |
| Observers: | Caroline Lambert, Greg Fudger, Yvette Fudger |
Visitors:
14 visitors stopped to chat and learn more about what we were doing. Huge thanks to Greg and Yvette Fudger who were very instrumental is seeing so many raptors!
Also thank you to Caroline for also helping spot for a couple of hours.
Weather:
The day at Hay Meadows started out very calm, almost no wind and almost complete cloud cover which became complete cloud cover of Stratus and some cumulonimbus until about 1:00, the the sun broke through and blue sky with cumulus clouds prevailed. There were frequent buildups of stormy clouds on the western horizons and we did have some obscuring of Mt Kidd, a few snow flakes and the Opal range was in and out of cloud all day. The wind gusted from time to time but generally was not more than a Beaufort scale of 1. the temperature started out at plus 1, went as high as plus 6 and was plus 4 at days end. T he eastern ridges were always clear, ridge winds were from the west or west south west and moderate, high winds were moderate to high from the west or north west.
Raptor Observations:
We observed 22 migrating raptors, the first one at 1:16 in the afternoon when the sky had begun to clear and the sun was warming things up. There was 1 unknown raptor sailing very fast overhead, 1 Bald eagle, 1 unknown eagle and 19 Golden eagles, 2unaged, 2 undifferentiated immature and 15 adults. Usually they were very high overhead or over Patrick, but about 4 were closer to the mountain tops, one even dipping below the Smiles on Patrick. The high eagles were not flapping, just sailing along rapidly. Besides the migrants we observed two mature Bald eagles flying low down the valley and later saw one of them flying north up the valley and then appearing to hunt near Patrick. We are guessing these are resident Bald eagles. Almost at the end of the day we observed an adult golden eagle flying south in front of Patrick also appearing to be in hunting mode.
Non-raptor Observations:
Other birds seen today were 7 Ravens, 4 Black-capped chickadees, 2 Mountain chickadees, 1 Boreal chickadee, 2 Canada Jays, 3 White-winged crossbills,1 Dipper, 2 Robins, and about 30 Bohemian Waxwings which flew up and down in front of us sometimes cutting it very close to us as if they were daring each other to get closer to the humans! Three Big Horn sheep rams were seen on top of Patrick early in the morning and a very healthy looking coyote ran across the meadow.
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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]
