Mount Lorette (28 Mar 2025) 22 Raptors

Visitors:
11 visitors stopped to chat, some more interested and more blessed than others, at actually being able to see some eagles.

Weather:
The temperature this morning was minus 4 Celsius at the observation site, rose to plus 2, then dropped to minus 2. with the wind chill, temperatures felt much colder . The wind was from the north all day, increasing in strength to a moderate breeze by mid afternoon. The sky was completely covered with clouds and the ridge tops were 80% covered for most of the day. Snow fell for the first few hours let up and then started again about 16:00.The ridges were impossible to see for ridge wind speed and the high clouds were moving very slowly initially from the southwest but switched to the north. Clouds were mostly stratus, stratocumulus and cumulus. At one point cirrus cloud was in the center of the sky with a pale sun showing through and then the cloud cover was heavy like a muff all around the mountains. the snow fall became very heavy and we packed up the day at 17:45.

Raptor Observations:
Todays raptors were very interesting. There were no migrants will almost noon when 9 Golden eagles were discovered kettling over Hummingbird plume. They looked like they had snuck around Mt Lorette and were trying desperately to gain altitude. The rest of the migrants came from the east side, mostly appearing just to the right of Patrick and often flying in front of Patrick, also appearing to try to gain altitude. The 22 migrants we saw included 1 adult Bald eagles, and 1 subadult,2 Unknown buteos, 17 Golden eagles, (7a,10u) and One unknown eagle as it had found a trajectory that carried it too high for good observation.

Non-raptor Observations:
The resident raptors put on a wonderful show for us. One of the adult Bald eagles flew up the valley upon arrival in the morning. The Resident adult Golden eagle flew several times up and down the west side of the valley and were later seen coming up the east side turning at Patrick and appearing to hunt their way back down the valley. Later, a juvenile Bald eagle flew in front of us, showing his white armpits and his two toned back almost looking like a golden stripe, and settled in a tree. We could see white feathers spotted on his chest. While admiring this one, we noticed an adult Bald eagle sitting about 200 meters away in another tree. A family came along just then and were thrilled to be able to get a look at the two eagles. They flew off, sometimes close together and sometimes quite distant but we saw them several times again up and down the valley. The resident Goshawk, also appeared several times, dropping down to catch something in the trees across the river and later flying right over us twice. The non-raptor birds seen, were two Song sparrows, two Starlings, 3 Robins, 2 Northern Flickers, 3 Black-capped chickadees, 1 Canada Jay, 6 Mallards, 1 Dark-eyed Junco, 1 Northern Shrike and the guest of honour, a Mountain Bluebird. the Pileated woodpecker was heard in the morning. A least weasel was seen dashing for cover by the little stream in the meadow. They are still wearing their lovley winter white coat.

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