Mount Lorette (07 Oct 2023) 166 Raptors
Alberta, Canada
| Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 07, 2023 | |||
| Species | Day’s Count | Month Total | Season Total |
| Turkey Vulture | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Osprey | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| Bald Eagle | 0 | 17 | 19 |
| Northern Harrier | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| Sharp-shinned Hawk | 5 | 66 | 96 |
| Cooper’s Hawk | 0 | 5 | 6 |
| American Goshawk | 2 | 19 | 23 |
| Broad-winged Hawk | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| Swainson’s Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Red-tailed Hawk | 1 | 12 | 17 |
| Ferruginous Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Rough-legged Hawk | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Golden Eagle | 158 | 648 | 805 |
| American Kestrel | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Merlin | 0 | 7 | 11 |
| Gyrfalcon | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Peregrine Falcon | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Prairie Falcon | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Unknown Accipiter | 0 | 16 | 34 |
| Unknown Buteo | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| Unknown Falcon | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Unknown Eagle | 0 | 4 | 5 |
| Unknown Raptor | 0 | 5 | 10 |
| Total: | 166 | 809 | 1058 |
| Observation start time: | 07:45:00 |
| Observation end time: | 19:00:00 |
| Total observation time: | 8 hours |
| Official Counter | Neil Denton |
| Observers: | Jessica Banas |
Visitors:
Approx 20 visitors spent time with us, including several who spent time with binoculars assisting the spotting efforts.
In particular, Kent and Doug – who spent the previous day at the count site too – were persistent and effective eagle spotters.
Weather:
Ridgetop Temperatures at the start of the day @ 7:45am was 1C, ending the day at 11C and the high temperature was 13C
Ground Level Temperatures started at a chilly -1C, ending at 7pm with 15C. The daily high was 18C
Summary of ridge wind Primarily S or SSW variable between 6km/h and 30km/h gusting to 50km/h
Summary of ground wind Primarily S or SSW variable between 5km/h and 27km/h with fairly extended periods of no wind or very light airs, particularly in the morning.
Cloud cover and precipitation Other than a very interesting pattern of high narrow cloud âbeamsâ that gave the impression of a sunburst, we had periods later in the day when a light, high haze impacted raptor identification. But most of the day was cloudless.
Raptor Observations:
The total count of Golden Eagles was 158 Golden Eagles (56AD, 32SA, 30JUV, 0UI, 39U).
Five Golden Eagles seen by 11am, with a further 20 by 1pm. Subsequently, hourly totals averaged 25 per hour. We had several groups of up to 6 or more eagles in sight concurrently.
During the afternoon, the eagles tended to follow the Mt Lorette-Mt Patrick route with quite a few being high over Patrick, and passing rapidly on the upper winds.
No Bald Eagles were observed.
Other migrating raptors were in small numbers, with Sharp-shinned Hawk at 5 individuals, 2 American Goshawk and 1 Red-tailed Hawk.
Non-raptor Observations:
Three Ruffed Grouse were seen at the start of the day, and occasionally by other people walking the trail to the site.
1 resident Golden Eagle was seen several times, with a non-migrant Goshawk (American or Northern according to your speed of adapting to name changes).
Other birds seen included three species of Chickadees, Belted Kingfisher, 2 distracting Canada Jays that posed on the Leica scope (and added some whitewash to it), 15 Common Raven, 1 American Dipper, 85 Bohemian Waxwing, 1 White-crowned Sparrow and 1 Swamp Sparrow calling for more time that I ought to have taken to identify its call note.
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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]
