Mount Lorette (05 Oct 2025) 184 Raptors
Alberta, Canada
| Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 05, 2025 | |||
| Species | Day’s Count | Month Total | Season Total |
| Turkey Vulture | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Osprey | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| Bald Eagle | 5 | 12 | 16 |
| Northern Harrier | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| Sharp-shinned Hawk | 1 | 12 | 42 |
| Cooper’s Hawk | 0 | 4 | 8 |
| American Goshawk | 0 | 4 | 10 |
| Broad-winged Hawk | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| Swainson’s Hawk | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Red-tailed Hawk | 0 | 8 | 30 |
| Ferruginous Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Rough-legged Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Golden Eagle | 178 | 307 | 449 |
| American Kestrel | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Merlin | 0 | 3 | 8 |
| Gyrfalcon | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Peregrine Falcon | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| Prairie Falcon | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Unknown Accipitrine | 0 | 2 | 8 |
| Unknown Buteo | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Unknown Falcon | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| Unknown Eagle | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| Unknown Raptor | 0 | 3 | 9 |
| Total: | 184 | 362 | 607 |
| Observation start time: | 08:00:00 |
| Observation end time: | 18:00:00 |
| Total observation time: | 10 hours |
| Official Counter | Lori Anderson |
| Observers: | Allison Zukewich, Caroline Lambert |
Visitors:
It was one of the busiest days Iâve ever seen and very special because so many people came with binoculars to help. A special shout out to two sisters, Amanda and Samantha Littler who spent most of the day with us, Nancy and Christen, Katrina and Michael and Sloane. Thanks, Ryan for taking pictures which helped us and thanks to Nikhil who was working on his film project today. Thanks Caroline for coming out yet again!
Weather:
At the start of the count the temperature was â3C, gradually rising to +6C by 17:00 and dropping to +3C by the end of the day. There was no wind at ground level until noon after which it averaged between 1-5 Km/h from the SSW for the rest of the day. The ridge winds were also low from the SW until 12:00, medium until 16:00 then stronger (43 gusting to 52) after 17:00. A few small cumulous clouds partially covered some of the west ridges until 15:00 and by 17:00 altocumulus clouds started filling sky. The eastern ridges were clear all day and the west mountains were only partially (up to 30%) covered until 15:00, then clear for the rest of the day.
*note times mentioned here are DST
Raptor Observations:
The morning was very slow, probably due to the storm that blew through the area yesterday afternoon. A sharp-shinned hawk was our first raptor of the day at 12:00, but we had to wait until 13:05 for the first eagle to arrive. After that, things kept getting busier and eventually borderline crazy. Before 14:00 we only had 15 migrants, then from 14:00 to 19:00 we found the remaining 169. The highest count was from 16:00 â 18:00 with 114 migrants, and final count was 184 migrants in total: 178 Golden Eagles (104 a, 12 sa, 36 j, 25 u, 1 ui), 5 Bald Eagles, and 1 Sharp-shinned Hawk. One of the resident Golden Eagles was seen, as well as an American Goshawk, hunting over Hummingbird Plume. All except for 2 birds were found along the eastern ridges. Coming from Lorette, they flew into the face of Mt. Patrick and worked their way over to North Fisher where many disappeared behind or flew off to South Fisher and disappeared.
Non-raptor Observations:
1 Northern Shrike, 1 Varied Thrush, 12 Common Ravens, 1 Black-capped Chickadee, 1 Belted Kingfisher, 5 Clarkâs Nutcrackers, 1 Mountain Chickadee, 1 Boreal Chickadee, 58 American Robins, One flock of Pine Siskins, Swamp Sparrow.
Report submitted by ()
Mount Lorette information may be found at: eaglewatch.ca
More information at hawkcount.org: [Site Profile] [Day Summary] [Month Summary]
