Mount Lorette (26 Sep 2025) 25 Raptors
Alberta, Canada
| Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 26, 2025 | |||
| Species | Day’s Count | Month Total | Season Total |
| Turkey Vulture | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Osprey | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Bald Eagle | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Northern Harrier | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Sharp-shinned Hawk | 4 | 15 | 15 |
| Cooper’s Hawk | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| American Goshawk | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Broad-winged Hawk | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| Swainson’s Hawk | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Red-tailed Hawk | 0 | 15 | 15 |
| Ferruginous Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Rough-legged Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Golden Eagle | 19 | 53 | 53 |
| American Kestrel | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Merlin | 1 | 4 | 4 |
| Gyrfalcon | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Peregrine Falcon | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Prairie Falcon | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Unknown Accipitrine | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Unknown Buteo | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| Unknown Falcon | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Unknown Eagle | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Unknown Raptor | 0 | 5 | 5 |
| Total: | 25 | 112 | 112 |
| Observation start time: | 07:00:00 |
| Observation end time: | 18:00:00 |
| Total observation time: | 10.2 hours |
| Official Counter | Caroline Lambert |
| Observers: | Allison Zukewich, Jim She, Roger Jones |
Visitors:
About 15 people stopped by, including a couple who helped spot for a while.
Weather:
The temperature started at 8C, rose to 15C, and fell to 12C at the end. Most of the time the ground wind was calm, but there were periods of much stronger wind, gusting up to 40 kph. Ridge winds were consistently from the southwest, starting out moderate and building to 55kph with gusts to 85. High winds were initially from the northwest, but had veered to westerly by mid-afternoon. The sky started out 50% covered with cirrus and cumulus clouds, which gradually cleared, but then a wide band of altostratus moved in from the west in the early afternoon, giving us almost 100% cloud cover for a few hours, before moving off to the east. By the time the count ended, there were almost no clouds to be seen. Between the wind and the varying cloud cover we felt chilled at times, and warm at other times.
Raptor Observations:
The below average count of Golden Eagles continued today. We wondered if wild fires to the north of us were causing the eagles to divert down the west side of the Rockies, as another hawk watch on the west side of Glacier National Park in Montana has seen twice as many eagles as we have over the same time period – in previous years we’ve counted more than them. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues.
However, we did see enough eagles to make the observers happy and keep us on our toes. The first couple of eagles were spotted at 0915, but then there was a lull until noon, after which there was a steady number. The peak of the day was 1600-1700 when 5 were seen. The last eagles were seen at 1830. All were seen on the east ridge, some high, some low, most gliding along easily with little effort. The totals were 19 Golden Eagles (6a, 2sa, 1j, 1ui, 9u), 1 Merlin, 1 Cooper’s Hawk, and 4 Sharp-shinned Hawks.
There were two instances of adult Golden Eagles seen on the west side of the valley that appeared to be hunting, and were considered to be one or both of the local pair. A gorgeous intermediate morph adult Red-tailed Hawk was seen several times as it hunted over the valley.
Non-raptor Observations:
Identifiable non-raptors were few and far between. Apart from a dozen ravens that were seen throughout the day, there were a couple of Boreal Chickadees, a Mountain Chickadee, one Ruby-crowned Kinglet, one Belted Kingfisher, about forty American Robins, about 15 Pine Siskins, and two Yellow-rumped Warblers. Many flocks of unidentifiable small birds flew by heading south.
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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]
