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Mount Lorette (20 Mar 2023) 39 Raptors

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Mount Lorette
Alberta, Canada

Daily Raptor Counts: Mar 20, 2023
Species Day’s Count Month Total Season Total
Turkey Vulture 0 0 0
Osprey 0 0 0
Bald Eagle 4 45 45
Northern Harrier 0 0 0
Sharp-shinned Hawk 0 0 0
Cooper’s Hawk 0 0 0
Northern Goshawk 0 2 2
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 33 315 315
American Kestrel 0 0 0
Merlin 1 1 1
Gyrfalcon 0 0 0
Peregrine Falcon 0 0 0
Prairie Falcon 0 0 0
Unknown Accipiter 0 0 0
Unknown Buteo 0 0 0
Unknown Falcon 0 0 0
Unknown Eagle 1 5 5
Unknown Raptor 0 0 0
Total: 39 368 368
Observation start time: 06:00:00
Observation end time: 19:00:00
Total observation time: 12.5 hours
Official Counter Lori Anderson
Observers: Glenn Webber, Rick Robb

Visitors:
A very special thank you to Yumiko Hiraki who came to help out while practicing with her new birding scope, and to Glenn Webber for spending many hours helping us. Twelve people stopped by to inquire about our activities.

Weather:
Temperature low -11C, high 3.5 C. There was no wind at the start of the count and when it did pick up it was coming from the NNE (both ground and ridge winds), which may have been one of the reasons that there were fewer migrants today. Gusts in the afternoon reached up to about 20 km/h. Early in the morning, there was 50% coverage by cirrus clouds which gradually transformed to 10% cumulous I want to share a fascinating thing that I saw today for the first time in my life. I noticed that there were small cumulous clouds concentrating in the area of Mt Collembola and the wind was coming from the NNE but there were no clouds near Mt. Lorette. The small clouds grew much larger as they traveled westward. I decided to look just east of the last cloud and I found the exact spot where the clouds were forming one after another at intervals as though they were being let through a tear in the sky.

Raptor Observations:
A Northern Goshawk called out from the forest at the crack of dawn and one was later seen hunting near the base of Collembola. A resident golden eagle displaying at the Olympic summit was the first eagle of the day. Oddly, today’s migration took place almost entirely over the western ridges (gliding and soaring) with a few exceptions at Lorette and two three birds that flew by Mt. Patrick. There was mist or fog in the air which made location and identification difficult. Many birds would just disappear into the thick air. The first Merlin of the season appeared at Patrick and flew like a bat out of h* to McGillivray. Golden Eagles 23a, 1j, 9u, Bald Eagles 3a, 1j, Unidentified Eagle 1, Merlin 1

Non-raptor Observations:
It was very quiet at the meadow today. We only saw 8 Ravens, 1 Black-capped Chickadee, 1 Canada Goose, 1 Dark-eyed Junco, and 4 Red Squirrels.


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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]