Mount Lorette (20 Sep 2023) 13 Raptors

Visitors:
In spite of the inclement weather, nine people came by.

Weather:
The temperature started out chilly – the coldest day of the fall season so far – at 0C. Fortunately the sun appeared occasionally through the clouds and heated the air up to 8C, before falling to 6C at the end of the day. Also fortunately the weather wasn’t bad as forecast (which was rain all day), and there were only intermittent sprinkles of raindrops between sunny breaks. The ridges appeared and disappeared in the ever changing clouds – never completely clear, but never completed occluded until the end of the day. There was no wind in the morning, but it gradually built up during the day, coming and going with the clouds and showers. At one point we had a gorgeous rainbow over the river to the northeast, enhanced by the beautiful fall colours. Ridge winds were light in the morning from the SW, but swung around to the NE by noon and stayed from that direction, and light, to the end of the day. The count was terminated slightly early due to the clouds closing in and nothing but rain showing on the radar map.

Raptor Observations:
The day started out with a Peregrine Falcon powering its way along the east ridge. From 2pm to 4pm there was a burst of accipiter activity over the east side of the valley, with as many as six in the sky at once. The ones that were scoped and identified were Sharp-shinned Hawks – likely all were Sharp-shinned, but it was not possible to ID them all. Four Sharp-shinned Hawks were positively identified, and four remain as “Accipiter sp.”. Only one migrant Golden Eagle was seen, late in the afternoon, soaring over the Bumps and then gliding to the south.
Two raptors were deemed to be non-migrating – one Bald Eagle was seen heading north, and an American Goshawk flew low over the nearby forest. The recent name change will be hard to adjust to!

Non-raptor Observations:
There were several flocks of migrating birds – mostly robins and waxwings. The only identified waxwings were Bohemian. It was good to see the American Dipper again, and a Belted Kingfisher put in a brief appearance. Ravens gathered in the sky in groups, playing and doing barrel rolls and generally seeming to enjoy life, as usual. There was a minimum of 13 of those. Other birds were:
Canada Jay 3 Red-breasted Nuthatch 1 American Robin 31 Bohemian Waxwing 9 Bohemian/Cedar Waxwing 30 American Pipit 1 White-winged Crossbill 2 Dark-eyed Junco 1 White-crowned Sparrow 1

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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]